GIFT   OF 

Bancroit 
LIBRARY 


LEAVES 


FROM 


A  LAWYER'S  LIFE 


AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE. 


BY  CHAKLES  COWLEY, 

JUDGE -  ADVOCATE,  S,  A,  B,  SQUADRON, 

AUTHOR  or  "  HISTORY  OF  LOWELL,"  "  FAMOUS  DIVORCES  OF  ALL 
AGES,"  "  REMINISCENCES  OF  JAMES  C.  AYER,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


LOWELL,  MASS. 

PUBLISHED  BY  PENHALLOW  PRINTING  COMPANY. 
BOSTON — LEE  &  SHEPARD. 

1879. 


C.7 


COPYRIGHT,    1879. 

BY  CHARLES   COWLEY. 

All  rights  reserved. 

G4FTOF 

Bancroil 
LIBRARY 


PREFACE. 

It  was  my  custom,  while  on  the  Staff  of  Admiral 
Dahlgren,  to  note  briefly,  from  time  to  time,  incidents 
that  took  place  in  the  Squadron  under  his  command. 
I  also  carefully  noted  the  events  that  had  taken  place 
in  that  Squadron  in  Admiral  Dupont's  time,  as  they 
were  related  to  me  by  those  who  had  been  eye-wit 
nesses  thereto.  Since  my  return  to  civil  life,  it  has 
been  my  custom  to  examine  the  successive  histories  of 
the  late  War  that  have  appeared,  and  to  note  their 
errors  and  their  excellencies,  in  relation  to  the  South 
Atlantic  Blockading  Squadron,  and  in  relation  to  the 
Department  of  the  South,  which  cooperated  with  that 
Squadron. 

These  pages  will  show  how  little  attention,  com 
paratively,  most  of  our  historians  have  bestowed  upon 
the  naval  and  military  forces  whose  services,  suffer 
ings  and  sacrifices  are  here  passed  in  review. 

The  mingling  of  narrative  and  criticism  has  its 
advantages  as  well  as  its  disadvantages.  In  the  pres 
ent  case,  I  indulge  the  hope  that  it  may  have  the  effect 
to  secure  to  the  South  Atlantic  Blockading  Squadron 
its  proper  place  in  the  history  of  the  War. 


861315 


6  PREFACE. 

Without  concealing  my  personal  predilection  for 
the  Cause  of  the  Union,  I  have  sought  to  treat  the 
Lost  Cause  with  entire  candor. 

Though  I  am  not  prepared  to  say,  with  General 
William  F.  Bartlett,  that  "  I  am  as  proud  of  the  men 
who  charged  so  bravely  with  Pickett's  Division  on  our 
lines  at  Gettysburg,  as  I  am  of  the  men  who  so  brave 
ly  met  and  repulsed  them  there ;"  I  am  prepared  to  say 
with  him,  that,  notwithstanding  the  great  and  wide 
spread  demoralization  which  attended  it,  te  the  War 
developed  and  proved,  on  both  sides,  the  noblest  quali 
ties  of  American  manhood.  It  has  left  us  soldiers  and 
sailors,  once  foes,  now  friends,  a  memory  of  hard-fought 
fields,  of  fearful  sacrifices,  and  of  heroic  valor." 

Since  these  pages  were  in  type,  the  pardon  of 
Captain  Small,  which  was  foreshadowed  on  page  54, 
has  become  an  accomplished  fact. 

I  learned,  long  ago,  that  it  was  Senator  Wade, 
and  not  General  Hawley,  who  made  the  faux  pas  at 
the  Navy  Department,  recorded  on  page  124;  but 
failed,  by  inadvertence,  to  make  the  proper  correction 
until  that  page  had  been  printed. 

CHARLES  COWLEY. 
LOWELL,  MASS.,  1879. 


"History  is  false  to  her  trust  when  she  betrays 
the  cause  of  truth,  even  under  the  influence  of  patri 
otic  impulses.  It  is  not  true  that  all  the  virtue  was  in 
the  Whig  camp  [during  the  Revolution,]  or  that  the 
Tories  were  a  horde  of  ruffians.  They  were  conserv 
atives,  and  their  error  was  in  carrying  to  excess  the 
sentiment  of  loyalty  [to  their  King,  just  as  the  error 
of  the  Confederates  lay  in  carrying  to  excess  the  sen 
timent  of  loyalty  to  the  State,]  which  is  founded  in 
virtue.  Their  constancy  embittered  the  contest.  Their 
cause  deserved  to  fail;  but  their  sufferings  are  entitled 
to  respect.  Prejudice  has  blackened  their  name  ;  but 
history  will  speak  of  them  as  they  were,  with  their 
failings  and  their  virtues."— JAMES  L.  PETTIGRU. 

"We  have,  we  can  have,  no  barbarian  memory  of 
wrongs,  for  which  brave  men  have  made  the  last  expi 
ation  to  the  brave." — EUFUS  CHOATE. 

"And  the  men  who,  for  conscience'  sake,  fought 
against  their  government  at  Gettysburg,  ought  easily 
to  be  forgiven  by  the  sons  of  men  who,  for  conscience' 
sake,  fought  against  their  government  at  Lexington 
and  Bunker  Hill." — WILLIAM  F.  BARTLETT. 


LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S  LIFE 
AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE!' 


CHAPTER  I. 

Blockades — Steam  Navies — The  Southern  Block 
ade — Our  Blockading  Squadrons — Compte  de  Paris — 
The  Steamer  Iroquois  in  Chase  of  the  E,.  E.  Lee. 

Blockades  are  of  two  kinds — military  and 
commercial.  Military  blockades  have  been 
practiced  from  the  earliest  times  ;  they  are 
merely  the  naval  equivalent  of  sieges  by  land — 
having  for  their  object  the  capture  of  the  ports 
invested.  Commercial  blockades  have  for  their 
principal  object  the  crippling  of  the  enemy  by 
stopping  his  imports,  and  by  isolating  him  from 
the  commercial  world. 

So  long  as  commerce  was  held  in  contempt, 
as  it  was  in  all  the  great  monarchies  and  re 
publics  of  antiquity,  there  was  no  occasion  for 


io         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

this  form  of  warfare.  It  was  not  until  the 
exploits  of  Vasco  de  Gama  and  Columbus  had 
opened  the  great  routes,  as  well  as  the  great 
commodities,  of  modern  commerce,  that  the 
Dutch  Provinces  oi  Spain,  in  their  grand  strug 
gle  for  independence,  struck  a  powerful  blow  at 
'.th'&ir  ;  |ti-uculent  foe  by  establishing  the  first 
commercial 'blockade — that  of  the  Scheldt. 

!  The<\  blockade  which  the  United  States 
enforced  against  the  ports  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  was  peculiar.  It  combined  the 
objects  of  a  military,  with  those  of  a  commercial 
blockade  :  and  our  Supreme  Court  recognized  it 
as  possessing  a  two-fold  character — as  valid  by 
municipal  law,  and  as  sanctioned  by  international 
law. 

Had  the  Federal  leaders  thoroughly  com 
prehended  the  difficulties  and  complexities  and 
the  enormous  magnitude  of  the  work  of  block 
ading  the  three  thousand  miles  of  coast  between 
the  Potomac  and  the  Rio  Grande,  when  the 
Executive  Proclamation  of  Blockade  was  issued, 
on  the  nineteenth  of  April,  1861,  the  hand  of 
President  Lincoln  might  have  been  stayed.  Of 
all  the  great  blockades  in  European  history, 
the  only  one  that  can  be  compared  with  the 
Federal  blockade  of  the  South,  was  that  which 
was  enforced  by  Great  Britain  against  France 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         1 1 

and  her  allies —  with  one  brief  intermission 
— from  the  time  of  the  Revolution  to  the  fall  of 
Napoleon.0 

The  power  which  chiefly  made  the  Federal 
blockade  so  effective — the  power  without  which 
indeed  the  Civil  War  might  have  had  a  different 
termination — was  that  of  STEAM.  . 

The  power  of  steam,  which  enabled  the 
Federal  government  to  transfer  a  vast  army, 
in  one  week,  from  the  seaboard  of  the  Atlantic 
to  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi, — the  power  of 
steam,  of  which  the  South  was  substantially 
deprived,  when,  one  by  one,  its  interior  lines 
were  cut  by  the  Federal  forces,  and  especially 
when  Sherman  disabled  all  the  railroads  from 
Atlanta  to  the  Sea, —  this  power,  and  this  alone, 
enabled  the  Federal  Navy  to  post  its  pickets  at 
the  mouth  of  every  harbor,  river,  inlet,  sound  or 
bay,  from  Maryland  to  Mexico  ;  to  arrest  all 
operations  of  commerce,  substantially,  save 
with  two  obscure  ports  ;  to  recover  all  the  Sea 
Islands  from  North  Edisto  to  Tybee  ;  to  make 
similar  conquests  on  the  coast  of  North  Caro 
lina  ;  to  run  the  batteries  on  the  Mississippi ;  to 
plant  the  Star-Spangled  Banner  over  New 

*See  Cowley's  Blockades  of  History,  in  Dahlgren's 
Maritime  International  Law,  pp.  137-142  :  also,  London 
Quarterly  Review,  October,  1876. 


12         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

Orleans  ;  and  to  perform  a  thousand  other  feats 
which,  without  a  Steam  Navy,  would  scarcely 
have  been  attempted. 

Innumerable  coast-line  indentations  multi 
plied  a  thousand  fold  the  difficulties  which  the 
vast  extent  of  the  Southern  seaboard  presented 
to  the  blockading  iorces.  Every  sound,  bay, 
inlet,  harbor  or  estuary  from  Cape  Henry  to 
Matamoras,  offered  shelter  to  inward  bound 
craft  laden  with  contraband  of  war,  as  well  as  to 
cotton-carriers  outward  bound.  Terrible  tem 
pests  lashed  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  and  the 
Gulf  coast  bristled  with  reefs  and  rocks. 

The  ports  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina 
were  naturally  the  first  to  receive  the  attention 
of  the  Federal  Navy.  On  thethirtieth  of  April, 
notice  of  the  establishment  of  the  blockade  at 
those  ports  was  given  by  Flag  Officer  Pender- 
grast  at  Hampton  Roads,  agreeably  to  the 
requirements  of  international  law.* 

On  the  eleventh  of  May,  Captain  McKean 
appeared  off  Charleston  in  the  Steam  Frigate 
Niagara,  and  gave  notice  of  the  blockade  of 
that  port,  where  his  movements  were  watched 
with  curious  interest.  Having  boarded  half  a 

*Our  prize  courts  released  such  ships  as  were  seized 
for  breach  of  blockade,  without  previous  notice  and 
warning. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         1 3 

dozen  neutral  vessels,  and  ordered  them  off  the 
whole  Southern  coast,  Captain  McKean  pro 
ceeded  to  the  Gulf,  and  arrived  off  Pensacola 
May  25th. 

On  the  twenty-sixth  of  May,  Captain  Poor 
arrived  off  Pas  a  1'Outre  in  the  Steamer  Brooklyn, 
and  gave  notice  of  the  blockade  of  the  Mississippi. 
About  the  same  time,  Commander  Porter  arrived 
in  Mobile  Bay  in  the  Steamer  Powhatan,  and 
gave  notice  of  the  blockade  of  Mobile. 

On  the  twenty-eighth  of  May,  Flag  Officer 
Stringham  arrived  off  Charleston  in  the  Steamer 
Minnesota,  and  thenceforth  "the  Venice  of 
America"  and  all  the  ports  of  South  Carolina 
were  under  close  surveillance  for  four  years. 

On  the  thirty-first  of  May,  the  Steamer 
Union  began  the  blockade  of  Savannah. 

On  the  seventh  of  June,  Flag  Officer  Mer- 
vine  reached  Key  West,  and  posted  his  pickets 
along  the  West  coast  of  Florida  and  in  the  Gulf. 

On  the  second  of  July,  Commander  Alden, 
then  commanding  the  steamer  South  Carolina, 
sent  in  notice  of  the  blockade  of  Galveston. 
On  the  twenty-third  of  the  same  month,  Flag 
Officer  Stringham  sent  in  notice  of  the  blockade 
of  Appalachicola. 

Considering  the  vast  length  of  this  line  of 
pickets,  and  the  fewness  of  the  ships  engaged, 


14         LEA  VES .  FR OM  A  LA  WYERS 

the  establishment  of  this  blockade  seems  rather 
a  subject  for  merriment  than  for  serious  con 
sideration.  Mr.  Welles  found  only  forty-two 
ships  in  commission,  March  4,  1861  ;  and  of 
these  three  were  in  the  Mediterranean,  seven 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  three  in  the  East  Indies, 
and  two  in  Brazil.  Only  four  ships  were  then 
in  Northern  ports  available  for  service. 

At  first,  men  laughed  at  the  attempt  of 
the  Secretary  of  this  ludicrously  small  Navy 
to  blockade  a  coast  measuring  3,549  statute 
miles,  (much  of  it  having  a  double  shore  to  be 
guarded,)  and  containing  189  harbors,  river 
openings,  or  indentations  ;  but  they  were  soon 
taught  that,  as  Lord  Macaujay  had  said,  "it  is 
not  from  the  laughers  alone  that  the  philosophy 
of  history  is  to  be  learned." 

For,  farcical  as  it  seemed  at  the  outset,  this 
blockade  soon  became  a  matter  of  the  most 
serious  moment.  Three  days  after  the  notifica 
tion  of  the  blockade  by  Flag  Officer  Pendergrast, 
the  Federal  Navy,  small  as  it  was,  began  to  send 
in  its  prizes.  ''The  rapid  rise  in  the  prices  of 
all  imported  commodities  in  the  insurgent  States 
presented,"  as  the  Count  of  Paris  most  justly 
observed,  "the  exact  measure  of  the  efficiency 
of  the  blockade."0 

"History  of  the  Civil  War,  vol.  2,  p.  434.     The  words 
of  the  learned  and  candid  Count  might  lead  to  the  inference 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.         1 5 

When  Congress  met,  in  December,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  reported  136  vessels 
purchased,  34  dismantled  vessels  repaired  and 
put  in  commission,  and  52  vessels  in  process  of 
construction  ;  making  a  total  of  264  ships,  2,557 
guns,  and  22,000  men. 

The  vessels  engaged  in  this  blockade  duty 
were  grouped  into  two  squadrons  : — the  Atlantic 
Blockading  Squadron,  which  consisted  of  22 
vessels,  carrying  296  guns  and  3,300  men,  under 
Flag  Officer  Stringham,  and  which  had  for  its 
field  of  operations  the  whole  Atlantic  coast  from 
Norfolk  to  Cape  Florida  ; — and  the  Gulf  Block 
ading  Squadron,  which  consisted  of  21  vessels, 
carrying  282  guns,  and  3,500  men,  under  Flag 
Officer  Mervine,  and  which  had  for  its  field  the 
entire  Gulf  coast  from  Florida  to  the  Rio  Grande. 

These  squadrons  were  re-enforced  as  fast 
as  new  ships  could  be  built,  or  old  ships 
bought  and  repaired.  More  than  two  hundred 
vessels  were  built,  and  more  than  foiir  hundred 
purchased  during  the  War  ;  the  latter  represent 
ing  every  style  of  marine  architecture — 

"From  Captain  Noah  clown  to  Captain  Cook." 

that  our  first  prizes  were  taken  after  the  disaster  of  Bull 
Run,  July  21, 1861.  But  the  fact  is  that  three  prizes  were 
captured  as  early  as  April.  Thenceforward  prizes  were 
taken  almost  daily  until  all  the  great  ports  of  the  South 
were  recovered.  Lists  of  all  the  prizes  are  appended  to 
Mr.  Welles'  Report  for  1865 


16         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

The  number  of  men  in    the    naval    service 
was  rapidly  increased  from  7,500  to  51,500. 

Referring  to  the  officers  and  seamen  in 
this  service,  on  the  page  already  cited,  the 
Count  of  Paris,  in  whose  luminous  narrative 
many  of  our  naval  operations  are  more  ade 
quately  recorded,  and  more  generously  applaud 
ed,  than  in  some  of  the  works  of  our  own 
historians,  says  : — "Their  task  was  the  more 
arduous  on  account  of  its  extreme  monotony. 
To  the  watches  and  fatigues  of  every  kind  which 
the  duties  of  the  blockade  service  involved, 
there  were  added  difficulties  of  another  character. 
It  was  necessary  to  instruct  the  newly-recruited 
crews,  to  train  officers  who  had  been  taken  from 
the  merchant  navy,  and  to  ascertain,  under  the 
worst  possible  circumstances,  the  good  and  the 
bad  qualities  of  merchant  vessels  too  quickly 
converted  into  men-of-war.  In  these  junctures, 
the  Federal  Navy  displayed  a  perseverance,  a 
devotion,  and  a  knowledge  of  its  profession, 
which  reflect  as  much  honor  upon  it  as  its  more 
brilliant  feats  of  arms." 

To  make  the  blockade  more  effective,  the 
Atlantic  Squadron-,  in  September,  was  divided 
into  two.  Flag  Officer  Goldsborough  took  com 
mand  of  the  North  Atlantic,  guarding  the  coasts 
of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina ;  while  Flag 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         17 

Officer  Dupont  was  assigned  to  the  South 
Atlantic,  guarding  the  coasts  of  South  Carolina, 
Georgia  and  Florida. 

The  Gulf  Squadron  was  also  divided.  Flag 
Officer  McKean  took  command  of  the  East 
Gulf,  from  Cape  Canaveral  to  Pensacola  ;  while 
Flag  Officer  Farragut  was  assigned  the  com 
mand  of  the  West  Gulf,  from  Pensacola  to 
Matamoras. 

But  before  these  divisions  were  fully  con 
cluded,  Dupont  and  Farragut  severa\ly  signal 
ized  their  accession  to  their  respective  commands 
by  capturing  the  best  of  the  enemy's  positions 
for  their  own  head-quarters, — the  one  at  Port 
Royal,  the  other  at  New  Orleans. 

Admiral  Goldsborough  having  held  the 
command  of  the  North  Atlantic  about  one  year, 
was  relieved  by  Admiral  Lee,  who  held  that 
command  about  two  years,  when  Admiral 
Porter  succeeded  him.  The  period  of  Porter's 
command  was  brief,  but  brilliant,  for  it  was 
signalized  by  the  bombardment  and  capture  of 
Fort  Fisher,  and  the  recovery  of  Wilmington 
and  all  that  remained  unredeemed  of  North 
Carolina  and  Virginia. 

Admiral  Dupont,  as  will  more  fully  appear 
hereafter,  retained  the  South  Atlantic  Squadron 
till  July,  1863,  when  he  was  relieved  by  Admi- 


1 8         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

ral  Dahlgren,  who  hauled  down  his  flag  two 
years  later  at  Washington,  when  the  two  Atlan 
tic  Squadrons,  reduced  to  a  shadow  of  their 
former  greatness,  were  united  under  the  com 
mand  of  Admiral  Radford. 

In  the  East  Gulf,  the  command  fell  suc 
cessively  on  Admirals  Lardner,  Bailey  and 
Stribling.  Admiral  Farragut  retained  the  com 
mand  of  the  West  Gulf  till  after  the  capture  of 
Mobile  in  1864;  and  his  successor  was  Admiral 
Thatcher,  to  whose  command  the  East  Gulf  was 
added  at  the  close  of  the  war. 

Each  of  these  fleets  had  its  own  history, 
(partly  recorded,  but  mostly  unrecorded,)  its 
own  perils  and  privations,  its  own  battles  and 
heroes,  its  own  triumphs  and  trophies,  its  own 
griefs  and  glories.  Of  each,  there  remain  many 
honorable  recollections,  which  are  fast  vanish 
ing  into  gloom. 

A  few  years  more,  and  the  last  of  us  who 
have  survived  the  perils  of  this  arduous  service, 
will  have  passed  away  to  be  no  more  seen. 

Local  tradition  may,  for  a  time,  preserve, 
with  many  a  fond  exaggeration,  and  with  many 
a  pardonable  invention  of  love  or  glory,  the 
memory  of  some  of  the  lesser  lights  in  our  naval 
firmament,  and  the  grander  luminaries  will 
shine  forever :  but,  for  the  rest,  little  will  be 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         19 

known  of  them  in  the  next  age,  unless  it  has 
been,  or  soon  is,  recorded. 

There  were,  of  course,  many  experiences 
which  were  common  to  all  our  squadrons — the 
dreary  monotonous  routine  of  man-of-war  duty— 
and  especially  the  incesant  watching,  the 
frequent  chasing,  and  occasional  capture,  of  the 
blockade-runners  ;  though  too  often,  the  chase 
ended,  like  all  other,  pursuits  of  this  mortal  life, 
in  disappointment  and  defeat. 

No  blockade-runner,  probably,  ever  effected 
her  escape  after  a  harder  chase  than  that  of  the 
Steamer  R.  E.  Lee,  which  was  chased  during 
the  whole  of  the  sixteenth  of  August,  1863,  by 
the  Steamer  Iroquois,  on  leaving  Wilmington 
for  Nassau,  with  a  cargo  of  cotton,  having 
among  her  passengers  Duke  Gwinn  and  his 
daughter  Lucy.  The  Iroquois  was  then  under 
the  command  of  Captain  Case  ;  the  Lee  under 
that  of  the  famous  blockade-runner,  Captain 
John  Wilkinson,  formerly  a  Lieutenant  in  the 
United  States  Navy,  who  tells  the  story  as 
follows  : — 

"We  passed  safely  through  the  blockading  fleet 
off  the  ISTew  Inlet  Bar,  receiving  no  damage  from  the 
few  shots  fired  at  us,  and  gained  an  offing  from  the 
coast  of  thirty  miles  by  daylight.  By  this  time  our 
supply  of  English  coal  had  been  exhausted,  and  we 
were  obliged  to  commence  upon  North  Carolina  coal 


20         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

of  very  inferior  quality,  and  which  smoked  terribly. 
We  commenced  on  this  fuel  a  little  after  daylight. 
Very  soon  afterwards  the  vigilant  look-out  at  the 
mast-head  called  out  'Sail  ho!'  and  in  reply  to  'Where 
awa>*?'  from  the  deck,  sang  out  'Right  astern,  sir,  and 
in  chase.'  The  morning  was  very  clear.  Going  to 
the  mast-head  I  could  just  discern  the  royal  of  the 
chaser ;  and  before  I  left  there,  say  in  half  an  hour, 
her  top-gallant  sail  showed  above  the  horizon.  By 
this  time  the  sun  had  risen  in  a  cloudless  sky.  It 
was  evident  our  pursuer  would  be  alongside  of  us  by 
mid-day  at  the  rate  we  were  then  going.  The  first 
orders  given  were  to  throw  overboard  the  deck-load 
of  cotton  and  to  make  more  steam.  The  later  proved 
to  be  more  easily  given  than  executed;  the  chief  en 
gineer  reporting  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  steam 
with  the  wretched  stuff  filled  with  slate  and  dirt. 
A  moderate  breeze  from  the  north  and  east  had  been 
blowing  ever  since  daylight  and  every  stitch  of 
canvas  on  board  the  square-rigged  steamer  in  our 
wake  was  drawing.  We  were  steering  east  by  south, 
and  it  was  clear  that  the  chaser's  advantages  could 
only  be  neutralized  either  by  bringing  the  'Lee' 
gradually  head  to  wind  or  edging  away  to  bring 
the  wind  aft.  The  former  course  would  be  running 
towards  the  land,  besides  incurring  the  additional 
risk  of  being  intercepted  and  captured  by  some  of 
the  inshore  cruisers.  I  began  to  edge  away  there 
fore,  and  in  two  or  three  hours  enjoyed  the  satisfac 
tion  of  seeing  our  pursuer  clew  up  and  furl  his 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.         2 1 

sails.  The  breeze  was  still  blowing  as  fresh  as  in 
the  morning,  but  we  were  now  running  directly  away 
from  it,  and  the  cruiser  was  going  literally  as  fast  as 
the  wind,  causing  the  sails  to  be  rather  a  hindrance 
than  a  help.  But  she  was  still  gaining  on  us.  A 
happy  inspiration  occurred  to  me  when  the  case  seemed 
hopeless.  Sending  for  the  chief  engineer  I  said  'Mr. 
S.,  let  us  try  cotton,  saturated  with  spirits  of  turpen 
tine.'  There  were  on  board,  as  a  part  of  the  deck 
load,  thirty  or  forty  barrels  of  'spirits.'  In  a  very 
few  moments,  a  bale  ofcotton  was  ripped  open,  a  bar 
rel  tapped,  and  buckets  full  of  the  saturated  material 
passed  down  into  the  fire-room.  The  result  exceeded 
our  expectations.  The  chief  engineer,  im  excitable 
little  Frenchman  from  Charleston,  very  soon  made 
his  appearance  on  the  bridge,  his  eyes  sparkling  with 
triumph,  and  reported  a  full  head  of  steam.  Curious 
to  see  the  effect  upon  our  speed,  T  directed  him  to 
wait  a  moment  until  the  log  was  hove.  I  threw  it 
myself; — nine  and  a  half  knots.  'Let  her  go  now 
sir?'  I  said.  Five  minutes  afterwards,  I  hove  the 
log  again  ;  thirteen  and  a,  quarter.  We  now  began 
to  hold  our  own,  and  even  to  gain  a  little  upon  the 
chaser;  but  she  was  fearfully  near,  *  *  near 
enough  at  one  time  for  us  to  see  distinctly  the  white 
curl  of  foam  under  her  bows,  called  by  that  name 
among  seamen.  I  wonder  if  they  could  have  screwed 
another  turn  of  speed  out  of  her  if  they  had  known 
that  the  'Lee'  had  no  board,  in  addition  to  her  cargo  of 
cotton,  a  large  amount  of  gold  shipped  by  the  Confed- 


22         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

erate  Government?  There  continued  to  be  a  very 
slight  change  in  our  relative  positions  till  about  six 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  chief  engineer 
again  made  his  appearance,  with  a  very  ominous  ex 
pression  of  countenance.  He  came  to  report  that  the 
burnt  cotton  had  choked  the  flues,  and  that  the 
steam  was  running  down.  'Only  keep  her  going  till 
dark,  sir,'  I  replied  'and  we  will  give  our  pursuer  the 
slip  yet.'  A  heavy  cloud-bank  was  lying  along  the 
horizon  to  the  south  and  east ;  and  I  saw  a  possible 
means  of  escape.  At  sunset  the  chaser  was  about 
four  miles  astern  and  gaining  upon  us.  Calling  two 
of  my  most  reliable  officers,  I  stationed  one  of  them 
on  each  wheel-house,  with  glasses,  directing  them  to 
let  me  know  the  instant  they  lost  sight  of  the  chaser 
in  the  growing,  darkness.  At  the  same  time,  I 
ordered  the  chief  engineer  to  make  as  black  a  smoke 
as  possible,  and  to  be  in  readiness  to  cut  off  the 
smoke,  by  closing  the  dampers  instantly,  when  ord 
ered.  The  twilight  was  soon  succeeded  by  darkness. 
Both  of  the  officers  on  the  wheel-houses  called  out  at 
the  same  moment,  'We  have  lost  sight  of  her/  while 
a  dense  volume  of  smoke  was  streaming  far  in  our 
wake.  'Close  the  dampers,'  I  called  out  through  the 
speaking  tube,  and  at  the  same  moment  ordered  the 
helm  'hard  a  starboard.'  Our  course  was  altered 
eight  points,  at  a  right  angle  to  the  previous  one.  I 
remained  on  deck  an  hour,  and  then  retired  to  my 
state-room  with  a  comfortable  sense  of  security.  We 
had  fired  so  hard  that  the  very  planks  on  the  bridge 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         23 

were  almost  scorching  hot,  and  my  feet  were  nearly 
blistered."* 

On  examining  the  Log  of  the  Iroquois,  I 
find  this  entry,  repeated,  with  unvarying  mo 
notony,  again  and  again, 'watch  after  watch,  from 
morning  to  night  : — 

"In  chase  of  a  strange  Steamer." 

A  little  more  steam  on  the  engines  of  the 
Iroquois,  could  it  only  have  been  obtained, 
would  have  made  a  fortune  for  Captain  Case, 
and  secured  a  splendid  windfall  for  every  one 
of  his  officers  and  crew. 

The  Lee  ran  the  blockade  no  less  than 
twenty-one  times  under  Wilkinson,  carried  out 
from  6,000  to  7,000  bales  of  cotton,  worth  two 
millions  of  dollars  in  gold,  and  carried  into  the 
Confederacy  return  cargoes  of  equal  value.  But 
on  November  Qth,  1863,  the  first  time  she  at 
tempted  to  run  in  under  another  commander, 
she  was  captured  by  the  Steamer  James  Aclger, 
and  sent  to  Boston  as  a  prize. "j" 

From  this  notable  example, — Nsurpassing 
in  protracted  interest  anything  like  it  in  my 
own  experience, — the  reader  will  learn  some 
thing  of  the  labor,  the  care,  the  fun,  the  frolic, 
and  the  peril,  too,  of  that  exciting  service. 

*Narrative  of  a  Blockade-Runner,  pp.  164-166 
f  1  Lowell's  Decisions,  36. 


CHAPTER   II. 

First  South  Atlantic  Prizes — Charleston  Priva 
teers — Capture  of  the  Savannah,  Petrel,  and  Beaure- 
gard — Confederate  Steamer  Nashville — Mason  and 
Slidell's  Mission — Nelson  in  Chase  of  Napoleon. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  serve  in  the  South 
Atlantic  Squadron  only,  seeing  no  other  except 
as  a  visitor.  My  reminiscences  will  therefore 
be  confined  to  the  South  Atlantic  Fleet,  and  to 
the  Military  Department  of  the  South,  with 
which  that  fleet  cooperated. 

The  first  prize  captured  off  Charleston  was 
the  Ship  General  Parkhill,  which  had  been 
warned  off  May  12,  but  disregarded  the  warn 
ing,  arid  was  taken  by  the  Niagara  in  attempting 
afterwards  to  run  the  blockade.  The  following 
was  the  notice  endorsed  on  her  Log: — 

"Boarded  May  12th,  and  ordered  off  the  whole 
Southern  coast  of  the  United  States  of  America,  it 
being  blockaded.  E.  L.  MAY, 

Lieutenant,  U.  S.  S.  Niagara." 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         25 

The  second  of  the  Charleston  prizes  was 
the  Schooner  Savannah,  captured  by  the  Brig 
Perry,  June  3rd.  She  had  been  a  pilot-boat  at 
Charleston  before  the  War.  Her  burden  was 
fifty-four  tons,  and  her  armament  one  i8-pound- 
er  mounted  on  a  swivel  amidships.  She  was 
commanded  by  Thomas  H.  Baker,  of  Charles 
ton,  and  manned  by  twenty-two  men.  She  had 
run  the  blockade  of  Charleston  one  day  only 
before  her  capture,  intending  to  cross  the  Gulf 
stream,  proceed  to  Abaco,  and  then  lie  off  Hole- 
in-the  Wall  to  capture  any  vessels  of  the  United 
States  that  she  could  intercept  on  the  voyage 
to  and  from  Cuba.  The  next  day  she  fell  in,  as 
Mr.  Greeley  relates,  "with  the  Brig  Joseph,  of 
Rockland,  Me.,  laden  with  sugar  from  Car 
denas,  Cuba,  for  Philadelphia.  Setting  an 
American  flag  in  her  main  rigging,  to  indicate 
her  wish  to  speak  the  stranger,  the  privateer 
easily  decoyed  the  Joseph  within  speaking  dis 
tance,  when  he  ordered  her  captain  to  lower  his 
boat  and  come  on  board.  This  command 
having  been  readily  obeyed,  the  merchantman 
was  astounded  by  the  information,  fully  authen 
ticated  by  the  i8-pounder  aforesaid,  that  he  was 
a  prize  to  the  nameless  wasp  on  whose  deck  he 
stood,  which  had  unquestionable  authority  from 
Mr  Jefferson  Davis  to  capture  all  vessels  belong- 


26         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

ing  to  loyal  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
There  was  plainly  nothing  to  be  said  ;  so  the 
Yankee  Skipper  said  nothing  ;  but  was  held  a 
prisoner  on  board  his  captor,  while  a  prize-crew 
of  eight  well-armed  men  was  sent  on  board  the 
Joseph,  directed  to  take  her  with  her  men  into 
Georgetown,  S.  C,"  where  she  was  condemned 
as  prize  of  war  by  the  Confederate  prize  court. 

When  the  Savannah,  afterwards,  on  the 
same  day,  hove  in  sight  of  the  Perry,  the  cap 
tain,  at  once,  to  follow  the  quaint  narrative  of 
Mr.  Greeley,  "made  all  sail  directly  toward  her, 
expecting,  by  the  easy  capture  of  a  second 
richly  laden  merchantman,  to  complete  a  good 
day's  work,  even  for  June.  On  nearing  her, 
however,  he  was  astonished  in  turn  by  a  show 
of  teeth — quite  too  many  of  them  for  his  one 
heavy  grinder.  Putting  his  craft  instantly 
about,  he  attempted,  by  sharp  sailing,  to  escape; 
but  it  was  too  late.  He  was  under  the  guns  of 
the  U.  S.  Brig  Perry,  Lieut.  E.  G.  Parrott  com 
manding,  which  at  once  set  all  sail  for  a  chase, 
firing  at  intervals,  as  signals  that  her  new 
acquaintance  was  expected  to  stop.  The 
Savannah  did  not  appear  to  comprehend  ;  for 
she  sent  four  shots  at  the  Perry,  one  of  which 
passed  through  her  rigging,  So  the  chase  con 
tinued  till  8  o'clock  P.  M.,  when  the  Perry  had 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         27 

hauled  so  close  to  the  puzzling  little  craft  as  to 
order  her  by  trumpet  to  heave  to,  when  the 
schooner  lowered  all  her  sails,  and  her  officers 
ran  below.  In  a  few  moments,  the  two  quarter 
boats  of  the  Perry  were  alongside  and  their 
crews  leaped  upon  the  flyaway's  deck ;  when  all 
remaining  mystery  as  to  her  character  was  thor 
oughly  dispelled.  Her  men  at  once  stepped 
forward  and  surrendered  their  side-arms  ;  and 
preceiving  there  was  no  bloodshed  the  leaders 
soon  emerged  from  the  cabin,  and  did  like 
wise.  ,  All  were  promptly  transferred  to  the 
Perry,  and  returned  in  her  to  Charleston  bar ; 
whence  they  were  dispatched,  on  the  7th,  as 
prisoners,  in  what  had  been  their  own  vessel,  ito 
New  York.'"" 

The  Federal  authorities,  at  first,  threatened 
to  treat  the  officers  and  crew  of  the  Savannah, 
as  pirates.  But  after  having  recognized  Con 
federate  soldiers  as  prisoners  of  war,  and^npi 
as  murderers,  they  could  not  reasonably-. -with 
hold  belligerent  rights  from  Confederate  sailors, 
whether  serving  in  public  ships  of  the  (Confed 
eracy,  like  the  Atlanta  and  Alabama,) r^r-m 
private  armed  cruisers  bearing  Confederate 
•  letters  of  marque.  And  when  the 
States  had  captured  a  large  number  qfj  If 
*American  Conflict,  vol.  1,  p.  598  )  ,"' 


28         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

soldiers,  and  when  President  Davis  threatened, 
as  he  did  in  a  letter  to  President  Lincoln,  to 
punish  Federal  prisoners  in  the  same  manner 
in  which  his  privateers  were  punished,  the  Fed 
eral  authorities  were  forced  to  recede  from  their 
untenable  position.  But  I  doubt  whether  the 
sunny-hearted  Lincoln  or  his  astute  Secretary 
of  State  ever  seriously  contemplated  the  public 
execution  of  Southern  privateers  as  pirates. 

If  the  Savannah  perished  prematurely, 
the  Brig  Jefferson  Davis,  which  left  Charleston 
a  short  time  after,  upon  the  same  business, 
had  better  success.  She  had  previously  been  a 
Slaver,  called  the  Echo,  and  had  been  condemn 
ed  as  such  two  years  before.  Her  armament 
consisted  of  a  32-pounder  gun,  placed  amid 
ships,  mounted  on  a  pivot,  so  that  it  might  be 
used  in  all  directions,  and  on  each  side  a  32- 
pounder  and  a  12-pounder;  and  she  was  manned 
by  260  men. 

The  Jefferson  Davis  was  painted  black  and 
looked  like  the  craft  which  the  poet  described, 

"Built  in  the  eclipse  and  rigged  with  curses  dark." 
She  spread  terror  through  New  England  and 
ran  in  as  near  as  the  Nantucket  Shoals,  making 
on  her  way  prizes  valued  roughly  at  $225,000. 
After  a  brief  but  brilliant  career,  this  famous 
privateer,  (for  she  carried  letters  of  marque 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.         29 

from  the  President  whose  name  she  bore,)  on 
August  i/th  grounded  on  the  bar  of  St. 
Augustine,  and  was  lost.  Captain  Coxetter  and 
all  his  crew  returned  in  triumph  to  Charleston.'-' 

The  third  Charleston  prize  was  the  Ship 
Amelia,  captured  by  the  Wabash  and  Union, 
June  1 8th.  The  anniversary  of  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  proved  a  Waterloo  to  her. 

Previous  to  this,  ( June  8th,)  the  Union 
had  taken  the  Brig  Hallie  Jackson  off  Savannah. 

On  the  ninteenth  of  July,  the  Schooner 
Dixie  ran  the  blockade  of  Charleston  to  cruise 
as  a  privateer.  She  carried  four  guns  :  her 
burden  was  150  tons  ;  her  commander,  Thomas 
J.  Moore,  had  letters  of  marque  from  President 
Davis  On  the  fourth  day  after  leaving  Charles 
ton,  she  fell  in  with  and  captured  the  Bark  Glen, 
from  Portland,  Maine.  Two  days  later,  she  cap 
tured  the  Schooner  Mary  Alice,  of  New  York, 
with  a  cargo  of  sugar,  from  the  West  Indies  :  but 
this  prize  was  promptly  recaptured  by  the  block 
ading  fleet. 

Another  week  passed,  when  the  Dixie 
captured  her  third  and  last  prize,  the  Bark 
Rowena  of  Philadelphia,  with  a  cargo  of  coffee. 
Captain  Moore  transferred  himself  to  his  prize. 
On  the  night  of  August  2/th,  the  Rowena  and 

*Appleton's  Annual  Cyclopaedia,  1861,  p.  586. 


30         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

Dixie  ran  safely  into  Charleston,  narrowly  es 
caping  capture  by  the  Federal  blockaders,  which 
were  too  few  in  number  for  that  wide-mouthed, 
many-channeled  port. 

The  fourth  of  the  Charleston  prizes  was 
the  Schooner  Petrel,  taken  by  the  St.  Lawrence, 
July  28th.  She  had  previously  borne  the  name 
of  Governor  Aiken,  and  had  been  a  United 
States  revenue  cutter  at  Charleston.  She  had 
been  out  of  Charleston  but  a  few  hours  when 
she  fell  in  with  the  St.  Lawrence,  which  she 
mistook  for  a  merchantman.  The  St.  Lawrence 
encouraged  the  mistake  by  pretending  to  run 
away  until  both  had  got  into  deep  water,  and 
the  Petrel  had  approached  within  close  range  of 
the  St  Lawrence.  Then,  suddenly,  an  8-inch  shell 
was  discharged  from  the  St.  Lawrence's  Paixhan 
gun,  like  a  thunderbolt  out  of  a  clear  sky  ;  it 
fell  into  the  Petrel's  hold,  exploded,  and  sent 
her  to  the  bottom  in  an  instant.  Four  of  the 
crew  went  down  with  her:  the  rest  were  picked 
up  by  the  St.  Lawrence's  boats.  They  suppos 
ed  they  had  heard  a  clap  of  thunder,  and  mis 
took  the  flashes  of  the  St.  Lawrence's  guns  for 
lightning.  It  took  some  time  to  satisfy  them 
that  they  had  had  a  fight  with  a  Federal  frigate, 
and  had  been  made  prisoners  of  war.  Then 
some  of  them  appeared  sad ;  some  glad  ;  some 
puzzled  and  amused  ;  and  some  indifferent. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         3 1 

The  commander  of  the  Petrel,  William 
Perry,  held  a  letter  of  marque  from  President 
Davis  ;  and  though  his  little  craft  carried  but  a 
single  gun,  he  would,  doubtless,  have  made 
havoc  among  our  merchantmen,  had  not  the  St. 
Lawrence,  in  this  summary  manner,  "prevailed 
on  him  to  stop."  He  and  his  officers  and  men 
were  all  taken  to  Philadelphia,  and,  after 
lying  for  some  time  in  jail,  were  exchanged  as 
prisoners  of  war. 

The  fifth  of  the  Charleston  prizes,  the 
Brigantine  Hannah  Balch,  was  recaptured  by 
the  Confederate  Steamer  Winslow  off  Hatteras, 
on  her  way  to  the  prize  court. 

Three  more  prizes,  the  Middleton,  Alert, 
and  Watson,  taken  August  16,  October  3  and 
15,  by  the  Roanoke  and  Flag,  complete  the  list 
of  Charleston  captures,  down  to  the  arrival  of 
Dupont  at  Port  Royal,  on  the  Eve  of  Guy 
Fawkes'  Day,  November  4,  1861. 

On  the  twelfth  of  November,  1861,  the 
Steamer  William  G.  Anderson,  cruising  in  the 
Bahama  Channel,  captured  the  Schooner  Beau- 
regard,  which  had  run  the  blockade  of  Charleston, 
only  one  week  before,  to  cruise  as  a  privateer. 
She  was  "a  long,  low,  rakish  looking  craft,"  re 
sembling  the  ships  of  the  pirates  who  infested 
those  waters  from  1812  to  1820.  Her  burden 


32         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

was  about  a  hundred  tons,  and  her  armament  a 
single  24-pounder  pivot  gun  ;  and  she  was 
manned  by  a  captain,  two  lieutenants,  a  purser 
and  twenty-two  seamen.  On  sighting  the 
Anderson,  the  Beauregard  ran  towards  her  till 
she  came  within  four  miles,  when  her  captain 
"suddenly  hauled  by  the  wind,"  probably  dis 
covering  that  the  stranger  was  an  armed  vessel 
of  the  Navy,  and  not  a  defenceless  trader. 

And  now  the  Anderson  in  turn  gave  chase, 
and  in  two  hours  brought  the  Beauregard  under 
her  lee,  fired  a  gun,  and  ordered  the  captain  to 
come  on  board  with  his  papers.  The  privateer 
captain  obeyed  that  order,  and  showed  a  letter 
of  marque  signed  by  Jefferson  Davis,  President 
of  the  Confederate  States,  and  countersigned 
by  Robert  Toombs,  Secretary  of  State,  and 
bearing  the  seal  of  the  Confederacy.* 

In  his  dispatch  to  the  Navy  Department, 
Lieutenant  William  C.  Rogers,  the  commander 
of  the  Anderson,  (who,  like  all  his  officers,  was 
a  volunteer,)  says  : — 

"Neither  Harper,  norGreeley,  nor  the  Count  of  Paris, 
nor  Lossiug,  nor  Boynton,  mentions  the  Dixie.  Harper, 
alone  of  these  authorities,  mentions  the  Jefferson  Davis ; 
while  the  Count  alone  mentions  the  Beauregard ;  and  he 
errs,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Savannah,  in  saying  that  she 
captured  "a  few  prizes."  Vol  1,  p.  430.  There  is  a  good 
account  of  the  Beauregard  in  Putnam's  Rebellion  Record, 
vol.  2,  pp.  429,  430,  Gilbert  Hay  was  her  commander. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         33 

"We  put  a  prize-master  and  a  crew  on 
board,  and  transferred  the  prisoners  to  our  ship, 
placing  them  in  double  irons.  On  boarding  her 
the  crew  were  found  in  a  drunken  state,  com 
mitting  all  the  destruction  they  could — throwing 
overboard  the  arms  and  ammunition,  spiking 
the  gun,  and  cutting  the  sails  and  rigging  to 
pieces.  She  was  otherwise  in  bad  order  and 
poorly  found,  and  having  but  a  short  supply  of 
water.  Having  twenty-seven  prisoners,  and  no 
room  for  them  on  board  the  W.  G.  Anderson,  I 
decided,  as  we  were  within  three  days'  sail  of 
Key  West,  to  take  them  and  the  vessel  into  that 
port  and  deliver  them  to  the  proper  authorities." 

There  were  several  other  privateers  that 
sailed  from  Charleston,  and  from  Savannah,  of 
which  I  have  learned  but  little — such  as  the 
Brig  Bonita,  previously  a  Slaver ;  the  iron 
Steamer  James  Grey;  the  Schooner  Sallie,  which 
ran  out  of  Charleston  and  captured  the  Brig 
Granada  and  the  Betsy  Ames,  which  were  con 
demned  as  prizes  by  Judge  Magrath  in  the 
Confederate  Admiralty  Court  at  Charleston  and 
sold  by  the  Confederate  States  Marshal. 

The  Savannah,  the  Petrel,  the  Dixie,  the 
Sallie,  the  Jefferson  Davis,  and  the  Beau- 
regard,  were  strictly  privateers.  I  now  come  to 
a  vessel  of  another  sort  On  the  26th  of  Octo- 


34        LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

her,*  the  Confederate  Steamer  Nashville  ran 
the  blockade  of  Charleston  under  the  command 
of  Lieutenant  Robert  B.  Pegram,f  then  of 
the  Confederate  States  Navy,  but  previously  of 
the  Federal  Navy,  to  cruise,  not  as  a  privateer, 
but  as  a  public  armed  vessel  of  the  Confederacy. 

The  Nashville  narrowly  escaped  being 
captured  as  promptly  as  the  three  privateers 
whose  fate  I  have  just  now  recorded.  The. 
Steamer  Connecticut,  which  was  sent  in  pur 
suit  of  her,  put  into  Burmuda  in  search  of  her 
before  the  Nashville  arrived. 

The  Nashville  captured  and  destroyed  one 
prize,  the  Ship  Harvey  Birch,  of  New  York.  She 
afterwards  ran  the  blockade  of  Beaufort,  North 
Carolina.  At  a  later  period,  she  entered  the 
Ogeechee,  and  landed  a  cargo  of  arms  in 

"This  is  the  correct  date.  See  the  Case  of  tne  United 
Stages,  in  Papers  relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington — 
Geneva  Arbitration,  vol.  1,  p.  132;  and  the  Case  of 
Great  Britain,  ibid,  p.  232;  as  well  as  the  Counter  Case  of 
Great  Britain,  ibid,  vol.  2,  pp.  295,  347.  But  in  the  Argu 
ment  of  the  United  States,  Messrs.  Gushing,  Evans  and 
Waite  give  the  erroneous  date  of  August  26th.  Ibid, 
vol.  3,  p.  138.  The  same  error  disfigures  the  Opinion  of 
Mr.  Adams.  Ibid.  vol.  4,  pp.  212-214. 

fCompare  his  commission,  in  Putnam's  Rebellion 
Record,  vol.  3,  p.  410,  with  the  commissions  of  officers  in 
the  Federal  Navy,  in  Lossing's  History  of  the  Civil  War, 
vol.  1,  p.  5GO. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  A  ND  A  SHORE.         3  5 

Georgia,  but  was  blockaded  by  the  Federal 
fleet,  and  prevented  from  getting  out.  Week 
after  week,  she  lay  under  the  guns  of  Fort 
McAllister, — 

"As  idle  as  a  painted  ship  upon  a  painted  ocean." 

Finally  in  Febuary,  1863,  she  was  destroyed  by 
the  Monitor  Montauk.* 

She  seems  to  have  been  meant  for  special 
service  on  occasions  of  emergency,  and  especi 
ally  for  duty  in  connection  with  the  diplomacy  of 
the  Confederacy.  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell, 
the  envoys  to  Great  Britain  and  France,  were  to 
have  been  carried  out  by  her. 

The  Tribunal  of  Arbitration,  at  Geneva, 
unanimously  decided  that  Great  Britain  was  not 
liable  for  the  damages  done  to  the  commerce  of 
the  United  States  by  the  Nashville.  Such  also 
was  the  decision  of  that  Tribunal  upon  the 
claim  of  the  United  States  for  damages  done 
by  the  Davis,  the  Sallie  and  other  privateers 
from  Charleston.  These  claims  had  no  such 
foundation  as  those  for  damages  done  by  the 

*No  historian  of  the  late  Civil  War  gives  us  anything 
like  a  clear  or  connected  account  of  the  Nashville.  The 
Coun£  of  Paris,  or  rather  his  translator,  errs,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Sumter,  in  calling  her  a  "privateer."  Vol.  2, 
p.  645.  Boynton  calls  her  "a  very  fine  and  fast  English 
blockade-runner."  History  of  the  Navy  &c.  vol.  2,  p. 
436.  As  well  call  her  a  Chinese  war  junk. 


36         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Alabama,  the  Florida  and    other  cruisers   fitted 
out  in  British  ports.  * 

On  the  night  of  the  twelfth  of  October — 
the  same  night  of  extreme  darkness  on  which 
the  Confederate  Flag  Officer  Hollins  attempted 
to  raise  the  Federal  blockade  of  the  passes  of 
the  Mississippi — the  Steamer  Theodora,  formerly 
called  the  Gordon,  ran  out  of  Charleston,  and 
carried  to  Cuba  James  M.  Mason  and  John 
Slidell,  the  Confederate  Envoys  to  Great  Britain 
and  France.  The  subsequent  seizure  of  the 
envoys  by  Captain  Wilkes  on  board  the  British 
Mail  Steamer  Trent  has  been  related  with  all 
desirable  fulness  by  most  of  the  historians  of 
the  late  War ;  although,  I  apprehend,  that  the 
question  of  the  rightfulness  of  that  seizure  is 
generally  but  little  better  understood  than  when 
Captain  Wilkes  sent  across  the  bow  of  the 
Trent  that  famous  shell  which,  like  the  shot  of 
Lexington,  was  "beard  round  the  world." 

I  was  in  Boston  when  Mason  and  Slidell 
were  brought  to  Fort  Warren  as  prisoners  of 
war — when  the  great  banquet  was  given  to 
Captain  Wilkes — when  Governor  Andrew  "slop 
ped  over,"  as  he  had  done  before,  when?  he 
kissed  the  gun  in  the  Senate  Chamber, — and 

*But  see  Harriett  Martineau's  remarks  on  this  subject 
n  her  Autobiography. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         37 

when  even  the  learned  Chief  Justice  Bigelow, 
for  the  first,  last  and  only  time  in  his  career, 
soiled  the  ermine  by  using  it  ad  captandum 
vulgus  with  opinions  which  his  sober  second 
thought  disaffirmed. 

All  the  newspapers  applauded  Wilkes. 
His  pluck  was  cheered  in  every  public  assembly  : 
"his  praise  was  in  all  the  churches."  Even 
conservative  statesmen,  like  the  late  Edward 
Everett,  hastened  to  say,  by  way  of  preludes  to 
lyceum  lectures,  that  there  was  a  precedent  for 
the  seizure  of  these  envoys  in  the  capture  by 
Great  Britain  of  Henry  Laurens,  while  on  his 
way,  during  our  Revolutionary  War,  in  a  block 
ade-runner  from  the  United  States  to  Holland. 
It  was  only  here  and  there  that  I  met  a  clear 
sighted,  hard-headed  lawyer  like  Judge  Abbott, 
who  shook  his  head  ominously,  and  said,  "This 
wont  do.  We  can  never  justify,  on  our 
principles,  the  seizure  of  any  belligerent  on  his 
passage  in  a  neutral  ship  from  the  port  of  one 
neutral  to  the  port  of  another."  The  great 
natural  sagacity  of  President  Lincoln  enabled 
him  to  view  this  seizure  by  the  clear,  cold  light  of 
reason  :  and  he  insisted  that  Sevvard,  (who  was 
the  ablest  of  his  lieutenants,  though  never  his 
master)  should  inform  Her  Britannic  Majesty 
that  Captain  Wilkes  had  acted  without  authority. 


38         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

Suppose  that,  in  the  late  Turko-Russian 
War,  an  Ambassador  of  the  Porte  had  been 
seized  by  the  captain  of  a  Russian  cruiser  on 
board  an  American  steamboat  plying  between 
New  York  and  Havanna,  and  taken  thence  to 
Cronstadt,  and  there  incarcerated  as  a  prisoner 
of  war:  I  apprehend  that  the  American  Eagle, 
that  blessed  Bird  of  Freedom,  would  have 
screamed  quite  as  loudly  as  the  British  Lion 
growled  over  the  act  of  Captain  Wilkes. 

Some  such  case,  as  I  have  been  told,  was 
put  by  the  President,  hypothetically,  in  one  of 
his  conversations  with  Mr.  Seward. 

Had  not  the  darkness  of  the  night,  the 
number  and  width  of  the  channels  of  Charleston, 
and  the  fewness  of  our  fleet  off  the  bar, 
prevented  the  capture  of  the  Theodora,  a 
case  that  ranks  among  the  most  famous  in  the 
history  of  international  relations,  would  not  have 
occurred.  And  what  honors  would  not  have 
been  paid  to  the  blockading  captain  who  should 
have  captured  the  Theodora  with  her  distinguish 
ed  passengers.  They  were  to  have  sailed  in 
the  Nashville,  as  I  have  said  ;  and  how  promptly 
the  Federal  cruisers  bounded  over  the  waves  to 
catch  them,  appears  from  the  fact  that  one  of 
them,  as  already  stated,  actually  reached  St. 
Georges,  the  port  of  their  supposed  destination 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.         39 

in  the  Bahamas,  before  the  ship  in  which  they 
were  to  have  sailed,  left  Charleston.  By  chang 
ing  the  time  of  their  departure,  and  their  port  of 
destination,  as  well  as  the  vessel  in  which  they 
sailed,  the  Confederate  Envoys  placed  the 
Federal  cruisers  at  the  greatest  disadvantage. 

*5 

How  extremely  difficult  it  is  to  intercept  an 
enemy  at  sea,  without  knowing  his  destination, 
was  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  experience  of 
Lord  Nelson,  when  in  pursuit  of  Admiral 
Brueys'  fleet,  which  carried  General  Bonaparte 
and  the  "Army  of  Egypt"  to  the  scene  of  their 
glory  and  their  shame.  Even  Nelson,  "the  first 
and  last  of  the  Titans  of  the  sea,"  did  not  escape 
cruel, outcries  of  "delatoriness  and  incapacity," 
which,  though  they  "redoubled  his  anxiety," 
could  not  increase  his  untiring  vigilance  and 
sleepless  activity.  The  incidents  of  this  chase 
are  thus  related  by  Lamartine  in  his  admirable 
Memoirs  of  Celebrated  Characters  : — 

"Bonaparte  embarking  at  Toulon  an  expe 
ditionary  force,  on  board  the  most  formidable 
fleet  that  had  navigated  the  Mediterranean  since 
the  Crusades,  left  the  English  ministers  in  doubt 
as  to  the  object  he  had  in  view.  Did  he  propose 
to  pass  the  Straits,  and  attack  Great  Britain  in 
one  of  her  European  islands  or  in  the  Indies  ? 
Was  it  his  intention  to  seize  Constantinople,  and 


40        LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

from  thence  to  dictate  to  Russia  and  Austria, 
and  to  command  the  seas  of  Europe  ?  Lord  St. 
Vincent,  the  admiral  in  chief  command  of  the 
naval  forces  of  England  on  the  coasts  of  France, 
Italy  and  Spain,  dared  not  abandon  the  blockade 
of  Cadiz  and  the  French  ports  ;  he  therefore 
dispatched  Nelson,  as  the  bravest  and  most 
skillful  of  his  lieutenants,  to  watch,  pursue,  and, 
if  possible,  destroy  the  French  armament. 
Nelson,  successively  re-enforced  by  sixteen  sail 
of  the  line,  hoisted  his  flag  in  the  Vanguard, 
and  hastened  after  the  enemy  without  any  cer 
tain  indication  of  their  course.  After .  touching 
at  Corsica,  already  left  behind  by  Bonaparte, 
and  examining  the  Spanish  seas,  he  returned  to 
Naples  on  the  i6th  of  January,  1798,  discourag 
ed  by  a  fruitless  search,  and  in  want  of  stores 
and  ammunition,  While  there,  the  reports  of 
the  English  consuls  in  Sicily  apprised  him  of 
the  conquest  at  Malta  by  the  French,  with  the 
subsequent  departure  of  the  fleet  as  soon  as 
tha*t  island  was  reduced,  and  directed  his  thoughts 
towards  Egypt. 

"The  intrigues  of  Lady  Hamilton,  animated 
by  her  double  attachment  to  the  queen  and  to 
Nelson,  obtained  from  the  Court  of  Naples, 
notwithstanding  their  avowed  neutrality,  all  the 
supplies  necessary  for  the  English  squadron 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         41 

before  they  resumed  their  dangerous  cruise. *  In 
a  few  days  Nelson  was  ready  to  put  to  sea  ;  he 
touched  at  Sardinia,  coasted  the  shores  of  the 
Peloponnesus,  searched  the  Levant  in  its  full 
extent,  dispatched  small  vessels  to  look  into  the 
road  of  Alexandria,  where  the  French  had  not 
yet  appeared,  traversed  the  Egyptian  sea,  sailed 
along  one  side  of  Candia  while  the  Republican 
fleet  passed  by  on  the  other,  came  close  to 
Malta,  vainly  interrogated  every  ship  or  boat 
coming  from  the  Archipelago,  learned  that  there 
was  already  an  outcry  against  him  at  home  for 
his  delatoriness  or  incapacity,  exclaimed  against 
the  winds,  crowded  additional  sail,  braved  con 
tinual  tempests,  and  finally,  on  the  rst  of  August, 
at  early  dawn,  discovered  the  naked  masts  of 
the  French  fleet  at  anchor  in  the  Bay  of 
Aboukir." 

The  victory  of  the  Nile  then  won  by  Nelson 
was  the  most  complete  that  had  ever  been  won 
at  sea  since  the  invention  of  gunpowder  ;  and 
must  have  shamed  those  carping  critics  who  had 

*The  fatal  attachment  between  Lord  Nelson  and  Lady 
Hamilton,  like  the  passion  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
'•inflamed  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterrenean,  changed  the 
face  of  the  world,  and  carried  on  to  glory,  to  shame,  and 
to  crime,  a  hero  entangled  in  the  snares  of  beauty."  See 
Lamartine's  fine  memoir  of  Nelson,  quoted  in  Cowley's 
Famous  Divorces  of  All  Ages. 


42         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

stung  the  pride  of  Nelson  with   their   senseless 
calumnies. 


CHAPTER    III. 

Battle  of  Port  Royal— General  T.  F.  Dray  ton-- 
Occupation  of  the  Sea  Islands — General  T.  W. 
Sherman's  Army — Battle  of  Port  Royal  Ferry — 
Robert  Small — Ter-centennary  of  Charles  Fort — 
Battle  of  Secessionville — Blunder  of  General  Ben- 
ham — Victory  of  General  Evans — General  Stevens. 

Had  not  the  name  of  Dupont  shone  among 
the  brightest  in  the  American  Navy,  he  would 
not  have  been  assigned  to  the  command  of  the 
fleet  of  seventeen  men-of-war  and  thirty-three 
other  vessels,  which  left  Hampton  Roads,  Oct 
ober  29th,  1 86 1,  for  Port  Royal.  His  heart  may 
well  have  swollen  with  both  professional  and  pa 
triotic  pride,  as  he  gave  the  signal,  "Weigh 
anchor,"  to  a  fleet  manifold  greater  than  had 
ever  before  been  assembled  under  any  American 
commander.  The  terrible  tempest  which  sepa 
rated  his  fleet  off  Hatteras,  has  often  been 
compared  with  that  which  overtook  the  Duke 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.        43 

of  Medina  Sidonia  and  the  Spanish  Armada, 
nearly  three  centuries  before  :  and  many  devout 
souls  in  the  Confederate  States  regarded  it  as  a 
sign  of  Divine  displeasure  towards  the  Federal 
ists,  and  as  a  proof  of  the  favor  of  Almighty 
God  for  the  cause  of  the  South. 

The  battle  of  Port  Royal  was  the  first  oc 
casion  on  which  a  Steam  Navy  fought  land 
batteries  while  sailing  in  a  circle  ;  though  some- 
thing  like  it  was  attempted  by  Admiral 
Dundas,  seven  years  earlier,  in  the  harbor  of 
Sebastopol.* 

Like  the  later  capture  of  New  Orleans,  it 
was  wholly  the  work  of  the  Navy,  and  the  Army 
merely  held  what  the  Navy  acquired. 

The  Federal  force  engaged  was  so  much 
greater  than  that  of  the  Cenfederates,  in  the 
number  and  weight  of  guns,  that  to  have  failed 
oi  success  would  have  covered  it  with  disgrace* 
The  merit  of  Dupont  lies  in  having  effected  his 
object  with  but  little  loss. 

*Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  2,  chapter 
17.  Admiral  Hameliu's  signal  to  the  French  fleet  on  that 
occasion, — "La  France  regardes  vous," — deserves  to  be 
bracketed  with  that  which  thrilled  the  tars  of  Nelson  on 
the  morning  of  Trafalgar,— "England  expects  every  man 
to  do  his  duty;"  or  with  the  famous  "sentiment"  with 
which  Bonaparte  roused  the  energies  of  his  Colonels  on 
the  morninsr  of  the  Pyramids, — "From  yonder  summits 
forty  centuries  look  down  upon  you." 


44        LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

If,  as    the    Duke  of    Wellington  said,    the 
art  of  war  consists  in  the  accomplishment  of  great 
results  by    small    sacrifices,  the   credit   due    to 
'  Dupont  can  hardly  be   overstated. 

It  is  not  often  that  a  soldier  fights  in  his  own 
village  and  on  his  own  estates.  But  General 
Thomas  F.  Drayton's  plantation  was  hard  by 
the  fort  which  his  valor  defended,  and  his  house 
stood  a  mile  or  so  distant,  within  a  few  yards  of 
the  beach,  commanding  one  of  the  finest  views 
of  land  and  sea  in  the  whole  archipelago  of  St. 
Helena.  Like  Dahlgren,  Pegram,  and  many 
other  officers,  the  sad  fatalities  of  the  civil  war 
compelled  General  Drayton  to  fight  against  his 
own  brother,  Captain  Percival  Drayton,  who 
commanded  the  Steamer  Pocahontas  in  the 
fleet  of  Dupont. 

There  is  a  noble  essay  of  Lord  Macaulay 
in  which  Colonel  John  Hampden,  mortally 
wounded  at  Chalgrove,  by  Prince  Rupert's  cav 
alry,  is  pictured  to  us  "with  his  head  drooping, 
and  his  hands  leaning  on  his  horses  neck,  mov 
ing  feebly  out  of  the  battle.  The  mansion 
which  had  been  inhabited  by  his  father-in-law, 
and  from  which  in  his  youth  he  had  carried 
home  his  bride,  Elizabeth,  was  in  sight."  With 
similar  feelings  doubtless  the  Confederate  Gen 
eral  Drayton  looked  back  upon  that  comfortable 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.         45 

mansion  where  he  had  so  often  sat  listening  to 
the  melancholy  music  of  the  sea,  and  thinking 
of  the  possible  future  of  that  magnificent  bay,  in 
which  all  the  Navies  of  the  world  might  ride. 

Lossing  and  the  Count  of  Paris  give 
excellent  detailed  accounts  of  the  battle  of 
Port  Royal.  More  condensed  summaries  are 
given  by  Greeley,  Harper,  Boynton,  and  many 
others.  The  reports  of  Admiral  Dupont  and 
Secretary  Welles  to  the  President,  must  not  be 
overlooked.*  As  long  as  Mr.  Welles  was  in 
office,  persistent  attempts  were  made  to  belittle 
him.  Whatever  he  achieved,  the  merit  of  it 
was  attributed  to  Mr.  Fox,  Mr.  Faxon,  or  some 
body  else.  Many  denied  him  the  credit  due 
for  his  reports,  which  are  among  the  most  mast 
erly  State  papers  ever  penned  by  a  public  man. 
Now  that  he  is  no  more,  the  truth  may  perhaps 
be  told  without  offence.  Mr.  Welles  had  admir 
able  assistants  :  but  he  filled,  really  as  well  as 
nominally,  the  first  place  in  his  Department. 

In  the  matter  of  style,  which  is  of  no 
small  importance,  (for  "the  style  is  the  man,") 
he  is  without  a  superior  among  all  the  men  of 
learning  who  have  filled  his  place,  not  excepting 
Bancroft,  the  historian,  or  Secretary  Thompson, 

*See  also  General  Dray  ton's  Report,  in  Putnam's  Re 
bellion  Record,  vol.  11,  p.  101.     Also  vol.  3,  pp.  304-318. 


46         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

the  keen  analyzer  and  expositor  of  the  relations 
of  the  Papacy  and  the  Civil  Power. * 

This  victory  of  Dupont  was  achieved 
exactly  one  year  from  the  day  when  South  Caro 
lina  began  her  preparations  for  secession — 
namely,  on  the  day  following  the  election  of 
President  Lincoln.  During  the  year,  the  armies 
of  the  Union  had  met  with  so  many  Big  Beth 
els,  Bull  Runs,  Ball's  Bluffs,  and  Belmonts,  that 
the  people  of  the  North  had  become  much  dis 
couraged.  But  upon  the  recovery  of  the  Sea 
Islands  by  Dupont,  ''the  winter  of  our  discon 
tent"  at  once  became  glorious  summer  ;  and  even 
the  growlers  of  the  press  became  cheerful, 
hopeful  and  happy. 

The  late  William  S.  Robinson  called 
attention  to  this  coincidence  of  dates  in  his 
"Warrington"  letters,  and  added  :  "Verily  this 
has  been  an  eventful  and  glorious  year;  and  I? 
who  have  been  complaining  and  scolding  at  the 
government  for  inactivity,  should  feel  ashamed  of 
myself,  did  I  not  think  that  complaint  and  un 
easiness  and  criticism  on  the  part  of  the  press 
aud  people  had  been  useful  in  bringing  the  ad 
ministration  up  to  its  present  position." 

*Mr.  Pollard  notices  the  contrast  between  ''the  won 
derful  energy"  displayed  by  Mr.  Welles,  and  the  '-feeble 
administration"  of  the  Confederate  Navy,  in  his  Lost 
Cause,  pp.  192,  224. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         47 

Charming  self-complacency  !  As  if  the  Ad 
ministration  had  actually  been  stimulated  in  its 
efforts  by  clamors  tending  directly  to  baffle  and 
discourage  it. 

By  the  capture  of  Port  Royal  we  gained  an 
admirable  naval  depot  and  a  firm  foothold  in  the 
region  of  the  Sea-Islands  Cotton.  It  also  af 
forded  a  grand  theatre  for  those  Anti-Slavery 
experiments  in  which  General  Hunter,  General 
Saxton,  Chaplain  French,  Colonel  Higginson, 
E.  L.  Pierce,  and  many  other  gentlemen,  and 
many  ladies,  too,  distinguished  themselves  . 

*  Beaufort  district  was  one  of  the  richest  and 
most  thickly  settled  in  the  Palmetto  State.  It 
contained  about  1,500  square  miles,  and  pro 
duced,  annually,  50,000,000  pounds  of  rice, 
and  14,000  bales  of  cotton.  It  then  had  a  pop 
ulation  of  about  40,000,  of  whom  more  than 
three-fourths  were  slaves. 

Beaufort  was  named  for  the  beautiful  Ga- 
brielle  d'Estrees,  mistress  of  Henry  the  Fourth 
of  France,  who  made  her  Duchess  of  Beaufort. 
She  it  was,  more  than  Duperron  or  D'Ossat, 
who  prevailed  upon  that  amorous  monarch  to 
renounce  Protestantism,  and  make  his  peace 
with  Rome. 

While  the  ships  of  Dupont  were  spinning 
round  the  ellipse  in  Port  Royal  Harbor,  General 


48         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

R.  E.  Lee  was  on  his  way  to  the  Confederate 
Department  of  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and 
Florida  for  the  purpose  of  directing  and  super 
vising  the  construction  of  a  line  of  defence  along 
the  coasts  of  those  States,  He  established  his 
headquarters  at  Coosawhatchie,  on  the  railroad, 
about  midway  between  Charleston  and  Savan 
nah.'-'  But  as  Colonel  Taylor,  of  his  Staff, 
writes,  "beyond  the  prosecution  of  this  work  of 
fortifying  the  coasts  and  rivers,  nothing  of 
importance  occurred  during  his  three  months' 
stay  in  this  department.  He  was  in  Charleston 
at  the  time  of  the  great  conflagration."  Early 
in  March  1862  he  returned  to  Richmond. 

The  military  force,  which  was  assigned  to 
occupy  the  Sea  Islands,  consisted  of  three  bri 
gades  numbering  about  fifteen  thousand  men, 
besides  artillery,  the  whole  under  General 
Thomas  W.  Sherman.  The  brigades  were  as 
follows  : — 

FIRST    BRIGADE. 
Brigadier-General    Egbert   S.  Viele. 
Third    New    Hampshire    Volunteer    Infantry. 
Eighth   Maine 
Forty-sixth   New  York 
Forty-seventh  New  York  " 

Forty-eighth  New  York 

*Four  Years  with  Gen.  Lee,  p.  37. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         49 

SECOND  BRIGADE. 
Brigadier-General  Isaac  I.  Stevens. 
Kighth    Michigan    Volunteer     Infantry, 
Fiftieth  Pennsylvania         "  " 

One  Hundredth  Pennsylvania*  " 

Seventy-ninth  New  Yorkf  "  " 

THIRD    BRIGADE. 

Brigadier-General  Horatio  G.  Wright. 
Sixth  Connecticut    Volunteer     Infantry. 
Seventh  Connecticut         "  " 

Ninth    Maine 

Fourth  New  Hampshire  "  "  " 

Third  Rhode  Island 

Dupont  and  Sherman  cooperated  admirably 
in  recovering  and  picketing  all  the  Sea  Islands 
from  the  North  Edisto  River  to  Wassaw  Sound. 
No  forcible  resistance  was  made  to  them  by 
the  Confederates  until  New  Year's  Day,  1862, 
when  a  determined  stand  was  made  under 
Generals  Gregg  and  Pope  at  Port  Royal  Ferry, 
on  the  Coosaw  River.  General  Isaac  I.  Stevens 
and  Captain  C.  R.  P.  Rodgers  commanded  the 
Federal  military  and  naval  forces  respectively. 
Mr.  Lossing's  account  of  the  battle  of  Port 
Royal  Ferry  is  the  best  that  has  yet  appeared. 

*Commonly  called  "Koundheads." 
fColonel  James  Cameron,  the  first  commander  of  this 
regiment,  called  "Highlanders,"  was  killed  at  Bull  Run. 


50         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYER'S 

Why  the  Confederate  forces  made  this 
stand  at  Port  Royal  Ferry,  will  readily  appear 
when  one  remembers  that  "the  Shell  Road," 
that  beautiful  and  only  thoroughfare  by  land 
between  Beaufort  and  Charleston,  strikes  the 
Coosaw  at  this  ferry,  nine  miles  north  of  Beau 
fort.  By  this  brief  battle  the  Federal  forces 
succeeded  in  destroying  the  Confederate  works 
and  in  burning  their  houses  ;  still,  the  Coosaw 
River  continued,  for  three  years  longer,  the 
dividing  line  between  the  opposing  pickets  ;  the 
Confederates  holding  the  left  bank,  and  the 
Federals  holding  the  right  of  that  stream. 

The  Eighth  Michigan  sustained  the  heaviest 
fire  of  grape  and  canister  from  the  Confederates, 
and  here  its  major,  A.  B.  Watson,  was  mortally 
wounded.* 

On  March  3ist,  1862,  the  Department  of 
the  South  was  established  under  General  Hun 
ter,  and  the  name  of  his  predecessor  was  no 
more  heard  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and 

*See  Lossing,  vol.  2,  p.  127 ;  the  Count  of  Paris,  vol. 
1,  p.  464 ;  and  the  reports  of  Dupont,  Rodgers,  and  others, 
in  Putnam,  vol.  4,  pp.  1-10 

This  battle  is  not  mentioned  by  Mr.  Greeley,  though 
his  narrative  does  contain,  as  he  saj^s,  "accounts  (nec 
essarily  very  brief)  of  many  minor  actions  and  skir 
mishes  which  have  been  passed  unheeded  by  other  his 
torians."  Neither  does  Harper's  History  mention  it. 


LIFE  AFLGA  T  AND  ASHORE.         5 1 

Florida,  till  another  and  far  greater  Sherman 
marched  his  pic-nic  party  from  Atlanta  to 
the  Sea. 

The  new  commander  divided  the  depart 
ment  into  three  districts — the  Northern,  under 
General  Benham  ;  the  Southern,  under  General 
Brannan  ;  and  the  Western,  under  Genera*!  L.  G. 
Arnold.*  The  adjutant-general  of  this  depart 
ment  was  Major  Charles  G.  Halpine,  the  famous 
"Miles  O'Reilly,"  who  indited  some  of  his  best 
effusions  at  Port  Royal. 

The  more  striking  events  in  this  depart 
ment  have,  of  course,  their  place  in  most  of  the 
histories  of  the  War  ;  but  none  save  those  who 
shared  its  severe  picket  duty,  or  the  severer 
picket  duty  of  the  cooperating  ships,  can  duly 
appreciate  the  importance  or  the  irksomeness 
of  the  part  which  it  faithfully  performed. 
Upon  the  maintenance  of  a  picket  line  of  250 
miles  in  this  department  depended  our  holding 
the  archipelago  of  St.  Helena  ;  and  upon  that 
again  depended  Sherman's  Grand  March. 

Colonel  Higginson  sums  up  this  work  in 
these  words  : — 

"The  operations  on  the  South  Atlantic 
coast,  which  long  seemed  a  merely  subordinate 
and  incidental  part  of  the  great  contest,  proved 
"Hunter's  Order  is  in  Putnam,  vol.  4,  p.  353. 


52         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

to  be  one  of  the  final  pivots  on  which  it  turned. 
All  now  admit  that  the  fate  of  the  Confederacy 
was  decided  by  Sherman's  march  to  the  sea. 
Port  Royal  was  the  objective  point  to  which  he 
marched  and  he  found  the  Department  of  the 
South,  when  he  reached  it,  held  almost  exclus 
ively  by  colored  troops.  Next  to  the  merit  of 
those  who  made  the  march,  was  that  of  those 
who  held  open  the  door."* 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  attempt  to 
close  the  harbor  of  Charleston  by  sinking  ships 
in  its  principal  channels.  Why  the  Federal 
Navy  might  not  thus  seal  up  a  hostile  port,  as 
Cardinal  Richelieu  did  Rochelle,  it  is  dificult 
to  see.  But  it  is  useless  now  to  discuss  what 
might  have  been.  Sixteen  vessels  loaded  with 
stone  were  sunk  in  the  Main  Channel.  But 
two  or  three  spring  tides,  (those  flood  tides 
which  attend  the  full  moon,)  washed  the  "stone 
fleet"  out  of  the  way. 

Harper's  History  states  that,  "in  a  few 
weeks,  the  Ashley  and  Cooper  Rivers  made 
for  themselves  a  new  channel,  better  than 
the  previous  one."  Greeley  thinks  "the  partial 
closing  of  one  of  the  passes,  through  which 
the  waters  of  the  Ashley  and  Cooper  rivers 
find  their  way  to  the  ocean,  was  calculated  to 
*Army  Life  in  a  Black  Regiment,  p.  263. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         53 

deepen  and  improve  the  remaining."*  But  the 
fact  is,  there  never  was  a  partial  closing  of  the 
ship  channel.  The  sixteen  old  whalers,  loaded 
with  stone  and  sunk  checkerwise  there,  disap 
peared  like  phantom  ships. 

While  the  people  of  Charleston  were  com 
plaining  of  this  imaginary  peril,  a  real  and  over 
whelming  calamity  came  upon  them,  and  a  large 
portion  of  "the  Venice  of  America"  was  reduc 
ed  to  ashes. 

The  daring  stratagem  of  Robert  Small,  the 
slave  pilot  of  the  Confederate  Steamer  Planter, 
plying  between  the  city  of  Charleston  and  the 
forts  which  defended  it,  has  not  escaped  the 
notice  of  Mr.  Lossing,  or  of  the  Count  of  Paris. 
It  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  personal 
exploits  in  a  war  in  which  brilliant  deeds  were 
not  uncommon  on  either  side.  Small  not  only 
brought  to  the  Federal  fleet  a  useful  vessel  and 
four  heavy  cannon  ;  but  he  brought  also  valuable 
information.  From  him  we  learned  that  General 
Pemberton,  who  had  succeeded  General  Lee  in 
this  department,  had  determined  to  abandon 
Cole's  Island,  and  was  strengthening  the 
defences  of  James'  Island. 

Small's  intimate    knowledge    of    the    River 
and   Bay    of   Stono    enabled    him    to   pilot    the 
*Harper,  vol.  2,  p.  733 ;  Greeley,  vol.  2,  p.  458. 


54         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

Unadilla,  the  Pembina  and  the  Ottowa  as  far 
towads  Charleston  by  that  channel  as  beyond 
Legareville — a  service  of  the  greatest  import 
ance  to  the  Navy,  although  the  benefit  of  it  was 
lost  by  the  failure  of  the  Army  to  move  with 
the  requisite  force  and  celerity  on  that  line.* 

Small  afterwards  became  an  Acting  Master 
in  our  Squadron,  and  commanded  the  Planter 
till  the  end  of  the  War.  He  has  since  been  a 
State  Senator,  and  is  now  a  Representative  in 
Congress.  It  is  true,  he  has  been  convicted  of 
accepting  a  Five-Thousand-Dollar  Bribe.  But 
his  conviction  was  procured  by  the  testimony  of 
a  single  witness,  and  that  witness  an  accomplice  ; 
and  there  is  doubt  as  to  its  justness.  And  even 
if  he  was  guilty,  it  was  at  a  time  when  all  around 
him,  including  men  who  had  been  brought  up 
under  the  most  favorable  conditions,  were 
rolling  in  wealth  obtained  by  bribes. 

The  generosity  of  Governor  Hampton 
may  yet  pardon  Small.  If  the  Governor  hesi 
tates  to  condone  the  bribe-taking  on  account  of 
the  "stealing"  of  the  Planter,  let  him  ponder  on 

*  Small's  bold  exploit  was  not  done  suddenly,  as  the 
Count  of  Paris  infers.  Vol.  2,  p.  234.  It  was  known  to 
scores  of  Charleston  slaves,  who  kept  the  secret  well. 
Strange  that  neither  Greeley  nor  Harper  deigns  to  notice 
Small,  though  the  latter  reports  speeches  by  village  poli 
ticians  at  flag-raisings. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.         55 

the  pithy  remark  of  another  gallant  son  of  the 
Palmetto  State  :  "You  cant  expect  much  moral 
ity  for  twelve  dollars  a  month."*  Small's  life  had 
been  passed  at  hard  labor  without  even  twelve 
dollars  a  month. 

On  the  twenty-seventh  of  May,  occurred 
the  three  hundreth  anniversary  of  an  event 
which,  if  we  had  had  not  been  so  strenuously 
engaged  in  making  history  that  we  had  little 
leisure  for  recalling  it,  might  have  been  celebrat 
ed  from  Maine  to  Mexico — the  landing  of  the 
first  European  settlers  in  the  United  States. 

These  settlers  were  Norman  Protestants, 
and  their  expedition,  which  consisted  of  two 
small  vessels  under  the  command  of  Jean  Ribaut, 
was  fitted  out  under  the  auspices  of  Admiral 
Coligny,  the  famous  Huguenot  chief,  who  perish 
ed  with  many  thousands  of  his  co-religionists  in 
the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  Captain 
Ribaut  was  an  officer  of  great  merit.  He  was 
accompanied  by  Rene  de  Ladonniere,  afterwards 
Governor  of  Fort  Caroline,  and  other  gentlemen 
of  high  repute  in  their  day. 

The  expedition  left  France  on  the  eighteenth 
of  February — a  day  destined  to  distinction  in 

*Admiral  Steadman's  remark,  when  voting  for  a 
lenient  sentence  on  a  sailor,  found  guilty  of  stealing,  by  a 
naval  general  court-martial  in  1865. 


56         LEAVES  FROM , A  LAWYER'S 

the  history  of  the  South  as  the  clay*  of  President 
Davis'  inauguration,  and  the  day  of  the  evacua 
tion  of  Charleston. 

After  landing  near  St.  Augustine  and  at 
other  points  on  the  coast  of  Florida  and  Georgia, 
on  the  twenty-seventh  of  May,  1562,  Captain 
Ribaut  entered  that  spacious  and  beautiful  bay 
which,  "because  of  the  fairnesse  and  largenesse 
thereof,"  (as  Ladonniere  relates,)  he  named 
Port  Royal.  He  spent  several  days  in  exploring 
the  rivers  which  enter  this  bay,  and  in  examin 
ing  the  coast.  Upon  this  shore  he  erected  a 
column  of  stone  engraven  with  the  arms  of  his 
native  France.  Ribaut  has  sometimes  been 
called  the  discoverer  of  Port  Royal,  but  he  was 
not.  The  Spanish  navigator,  Vasquez  de  Allyon, 
had  been  there  more  than  forty  years  before — in 
1520. 

Having  determined  to  plant  a  colony  here, 
he  built  a  fort,  the  walls  being  formed  of  a  kind 
of  concrete  made  largely  of  oyster  shells,  and 
called  coquina.  The  remains  of  these  walls  are 
still  visible  on  Old  Fort  Plantation,  at  the  mouth 
of  Battery  Creek,  about  six  miles  from 
Beaufort.  As  this  fort  was  to  contain  only 
twenty-six  men,  it  was  only  twenty-six  fathoms 
long  and  thirteen  wide.  Captain  Ribaut  called 
it  Charles  Fort  in  honor  of  his  King,  Charles 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         57 

the  Ninth,  and  placing  it  under  the  command  of 
Captain  Albert  de  la  Pierria,  he  turned  his  prows 
toward  France. 

The  solitude  of  the  wilderness  is  as  de 
pressing  as  the  solitude  of  the  sea ;  and  the 
ennui  endured  by  the  little  garrison  of  Charles 
Fort,  "with  no  civilized  neighbors  from  the 
North  Pole  to  Mexico,"  can  only  be  compared 
with  that  which  our  own  Navy  experienced  dur 
ing  the  long  blockade  of  the  South.  It  drove 
them  to  sickness — to  dispair — to  insanity.  In  a 
mutiny  which  arose,  Albert  was  put  to  death  by 
his  own  men,  and  Nicholas  Barre  was  chosen 
commander  ;  but  the  fear  of  coming  famine  and 
the  want  of  provisions  made  the  men  desperate. 
They  obtained  food  from  the  Indians  for  some 
time.  Finally,  they  built  a  rude  pinnace — the0 
first  sea-going  vessel  ever  constructed  on  this 
Continent — and  embarked  for  France.  After 
incredible  sufferings  from  hunger  and  thirst, 
they  were  picked  up  by  an  English  vessel,  the 
captain  of  which  presented  some  of  them  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  ;  and  glad  they  were  to  see 
once  more  their  native  Normandy.  « 

Mr.  Simms  has  illustrated  the  sojourn  of 
Albert  de  la  Pierria  at  Port  Royal  in  the  Lily 
and  the  Totem.  Colonel  Higginson,  whose 
regiment  of  blacks  was  encamped  for  some  time 


60         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Engineers  under  Captain  Sea^s,  formed  the 
storming  party.  Captain  Rockwell's  Connecti 
cut  Light  Battery  and  Captain  S.  M.  Sargeant's 
company  of  the  First  Massachusetts  Cavalry, 
followed  in  the  rear. 

The  Count  of  Paris  praises  these  young 
and  inexperienced  troops  as  having  "behaved 
like  veterans."  They  had  to  advance  upon  a 
narrow  ridge  of  sand  not  over  200  yards  wide, 
swept  by  grape  and  canister  from  six  cannon, 
(one  of  which  was  sighted  by  Lamar  himself,) 
and  exposed  to  a  murderous  fire  from  rifle-pits 
and  sharp-shooters  on  both  flanks  and  in  their 
rear.  The  crossing  of  the  famous  bridge  of 
Lodi  could  hardly  have  been  more  terrible.* 

The  batteries  they  attacked  were  protected 
by  an  insuperable  abatis,  a  ditch  seven  feet 
deep,  and  a  parapet  nine  feet  high.  The  Count 
of  Paris  says,  "They  advanced  with  the  bayonet 
without  firing  a  shot,  and  had  already  passed 
the  last  hedge,  situated  some  five  hundred  yards 
from  the  work,  before  its  defenders  had  become 
aware  of  their  approach.  Colonel  Lamar  had 
scarcely  collected  a  few  men,  and  fired  his 
seige-gun  once,  when  the  assailants  were  al- 

*At  St.  Helena,  Bonaparte  said,  it  was  at  Lodi,  as  he 
crossed  the  bridge  with  Lannes,  that  he  felt  the  first  spark 
of  his  all-devouring  ambition — which  the  battles  of  Tou 
lon,  Milesimo  and  Monte  Notte  had  failed  to  kindle. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         61 

ready  in  the  ditch.  One  of  the  most  sanguin 
ary  close  combats  was  engaged  on  the  parapet 
itself;  it  was  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the 
clay  was  hot,  foggy  and  damp  ;  the  combatants 
were  soon  enveloped  in  dense  smoke.  The 
boldest  among  the  Federals  had  penetrated  into 
the  entrenchments,,  and  planted  on  them  the 
flag  of  the  Eighth  Michigan;  but  they  could  not 
capture  the  redoubt,  the  guns  of  which,  loaded 
with  grape,  swept  the  summit  of  the  ridge,  and 
opened  several  gaps  in  the  ranks  of  the  regi 
ments  which  Stevens  had  sent  to  their 
assistance." 

The  gallant  Colonel  Fenton  threw  the 
Eighth  Michigan  as  far  to  the  right  as  possible, 
and  used  every  effort,  as  General  Stevens  says, 
"to  bring  on,  in  support,  the  Seventh  Connecti 
cut  and  the  Twenty-eighth  Massachusetts  ;  but 
the  terrible  fire  of  grape  and  musketry  from  the 
enemy's  works  cut  the  two  former  regiments  in 
two,  the  right  going  to  the  right  and  the  left  to 
the  left,  whither,  finally,  the  whole  of  the 
Twenty-eighth  Massachusetts  took  its  position, 
and  where  thev  were  joined,  with  scarcely  an 
interval  of  time,  by  the  One  Hundredth  Penn 
sylvania  and  the  Forty-sixth  New  York,  of 
Leasure's  brigade.  These  regiments  had  been 
brought  up  with  great  promptness  and  energy 


60         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Engineers  under  Captain  Sea^s,  formed  the 
storming  party.  Captain  Rockwell's  Connecti 
cut  Light  Battery  and  Captain  S.  M.  Sargeant's 
company  of  the  First  Massachusetts  Cavalry, 
followed  in  the  rear. 

The  Count  of  Paris  praises  these  young 
and  inexperienced  troops  as  having  "behaved 
like  veterans."  They  had  to  advance  upon  a 
narrow  ridge  of  sand  not  over  200  yards  wide, 
swept  by  grape  and  canister  from  six  cannon, 
(one  of  which  was  sighted  by  Lamar  himself,) 
and  exposed  to  a  murderous  fire  from  rifle-pits 
and  sharp-shooters  on  both  flanks  and  in  their 
rear.  The  crossing  of  the  famous  bridge  of 
Lodi  could  hardly  have  been  more  terrible.* 

The  batteries  they  attacked  were  protected 
by  an  insuperable  abatis,  a  ditch  seven  feet 
deep,  and  a  parapet  nine  feet  high.  The  Count 
of  Paris  says,  "They  advanced  with  the  bayonet 
without  firing  a  shot,  and  had  already  passed 
the  last  hedge,  situated  some  five  hundred  yards 
from  the  work,  before  its  defenders  had  become 
aware  of  their  approach.  Colonel  Lamar  had 
scarcely  collected  a  few  men,  and  fired  his 
seige-gun  once,  when  the  assailants  were  al- 

*At  St.  Helena,  Bonaparte  said,  it  was  at  Lodi,  as  he 
crossed  the  bridge  with  Lannes,  that  he  felt  the  first  spark 
of  his  all-devouring  ambition — which  the  battles  of  Tou 
lon,  Milesimo  and  Monte  Notte  had  failed  to  kindle. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  A  ND  A  SHORE.         6 1 

ready  in  the  ditch.  One  of  the  most  sanguin 
ary  close  combats  was  engaged  on  the  parapet 
itself;  it  was  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the 
day  was  hot,  foggy  and  damp  ;  the  combatants 
were  soon  enveloped  in  dense  smoke.  The 
boldest  among  the  Federals  had  penetrated  into 
the  entrenchments,  and  planted  on  them  the 
flag  of  the  Eighth  Michigan;  but  they  could  not 
capture  the  redoubt,  the  guns  of  which,  loaded 
with  grape,  swept  the  summit  of  the  ridge,  and 
opened  several  gaps  in  the  ranks  of  the  regi 
ments  which  Stevens  had  sent  to  their 
assistance." 

The  gallant  Colonel  Fenton  threw  the 
Eighth  Michigan  as  far  to  the  right  as  possible, 
and  used  every  effort,  as  General  Stevens  says, 
"to  bring  on,  in  support,  the  Seventh  Connecti 
cut  and  the  Twenty-eighth  Massachusetts  ;  but 
the  terrible  fire  of  grape  and  musketry  from  the 
enemy's  works  cut  the  two  former  regiments  in 
two,  the  right  going  to  the  right  and  the  left  to 
the  left,  whither,  finally,  the  whole  of  the 
Twenty-eighth  Massachusetts  took  its  position, 
and  where  thev  were  joined,  with  scarcely  an 
interval  of  time,  by  the  One  Hundredth  Penn 
sylvania  and  the  Forty-sixth  New  York,  of 
Leasure's  brigade.  These  regiments  had  been 
brought  up  with  great  promptness  and  energy 


62         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

by  Colonel  Leasure,  and  the  right  of  the  One 
Hundredth  had  pushed  up  to  and  joined  the 
Seventy-ninth  in  their  charge." 

The  battle  became  a  massacre.  Stevens 
says,  "The  Eighth  Michigan  made  the  most 
heroic  exertions,  and  suffered  the  most  terrible 
losses.  Captains  Pratt,  Church,  Guild,  and 
Lieutenant  Cattrell,  commanding  companies, 
were  killed,  and  Captains  Doyle  and  Lewis  and 
Lieutenant  Bates,  commanding  companies,  were 
wounded  on  or  near  the  parapet  of  the  work. 
#  #  of  twenty-two  officers  of  that  regiment 
who  went  into  action,  twelve  were  killed  and 
wounded." 

If  we  had  "Highlanders"  on  our  side  in 
this  battle,  so  had  the  South — a  Charleston  bat 
talion  composed  largely  of  Scots  and  the  de- 
cendants  of  Scots,  under  Major  David  Ramsay, 
(son  of  the  historian,)  who  was  subsequently 
mortally  wounded  at  Fort  Wagner. 

In  less  than  half  an  hour,  that  gallant 
regiment  lost  two-fifths  of  its  whole  force.  The 
total  loss  on  our  side  was  nearly  600,  including 
more  than  sixty  officers.  The  Confederate  loss 
was  207. 

This  assault  on  Secessionville  was  made  by 
General  Benham,  in  violation  of  the  instructions 
of  General  Hunter,  and  against  the  advice  of 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.         63 

Generals  Stevens  and  Wright.  Had  the  same 
force  assaulted  these  works  a  month  earlier 
when  Robert  Small  brought  the  information  of 
General  Pemberton's  designs,  the  result  might 
have  been  different. 

As  is  stated  in  the  Military  and  Civil 
History  of  Connecticut,  this  movement  was  an 
inexcusable  blunder  from  beginning  to  end.  "Ten 
thousand  men  were  sent  to  make  a  five  days' 
march  on  three  days'  rations  ;  and  the  sequel 
was  that  they  arrived  without  food,  tents,  or 
cooking  utensils.  The  only  cooking  utensil 
the  field  and  staff  of  the  Sixth  had,  was  a  gallon 
camphene  can,  with  nozzle  and  top  cut  off.  In 
this  were  cooked  potatoes,  pork,  beef,  coffee, 
tea, — food  of  every  sort, — for  three  weeks." 

The  battle  of  Secessionville  has  been 
shamefully  slighted  by  compilers  of  histories. 
Harper's  work,  while  treating  many  engage 
ments  of  our  Civil  War  more  copiously  than 
any  other  narrative,  devotes  but  a  few  lines  to 
Secessionville.  John  S.  C.  Abbott  and  many 
others  omit  to  notice  it.  Horace  Greeley 
and  the  Count  of  Paris  tell  the  story  of 
this  combat  clearly  and  fairly  but  more  briefly 
than  one  could  wish.  Lossing's  account  is 
of  inferior  merit.  The  Military  and  Civil  His 
tory  of  Connecticut  contains  a  good  account  of 


64         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

the  distinguished  part  which  the  Connecticut 
regiments  sustained  in  this  battle;  but  it  is 
avowedly  devoted  to  the  Connecticut  men 
alone,  and  the  heroes  of  New  York,  Michigan 
and  Pennsylvania  are  left  unmentioned.  In 
Putnam's  Rebellion  Record  the  reports  of  all 
the  commanders  on  both  sides,  with  praiseworthy 
fairness,  are  printed  in  full.* 

Mr.  Guernsey,  who  compiled  that  portion 
of  Harper's  History  which  relates  to  the 
Department  of  the  South,  thinks  it  "a  great 
mistake,"  on  Pemberton's  part,  to  abandon  Cole's 
Island.  Pemberton  not  being  one  of  Mr. 
Pollard's  pets,  like  Johnston  and  Beauregard, 
this  movement  is  condemned  in  the  History  of 
the  Lost  Cause.  President  Davis,  however,  had 
a  high  opinion  of  Pemberton's  abilities,  though 
he  finally  sent  Beauregard  to  relieve  him,  to 
hush  the  clamor  of  the  politicians  and  the  press. 
I  cannot  but  think  that  this  officer  was  as  wise 
as  any  of  his  critics.  The  lesson  thundered 
from  the  cannon  of  Dupont  at  Port  Royal,  that 
uncovered  batteries  cannot  successfully  resist 
the  converging  fire  of  heavily  armed  fleets,  had 
not  been  lost  on  him.  He  therefore  withdrew 
from  a  position  which,  from  the  depth  of  the 
adjacent  waters,  might  easily  be  assailed  with 
*Vol.  5.  pp.  209-221 ;  vol.  12,  pp.  494-504. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         65 

effect  by  the  Navy,  and  strengthened  to  the 
utmost  those  inner  fortifications  which,  from  the 
shallowness  of  the  water,  were  practically  beyond 
the  Navy's  reach.  Two  of  our  gunboats,  the 
Ellen  and  the  Hall,  which  managed  to  get  into 
this  action,  when  the  tide  rose  high  enough  to 
enable  them  to  approach,  obtained  an  excellent 
range,  and  as  General  Stevens  says,  "did  very 
great  execution  among  the  ranks  of  the  enemy." 
Besides  this,  the  great  length  of  the  Confederate 
line  when  Pemberton  assumed  command,  might 
well  alarm  even  a  less  wary  commander. 

General  Stevens,  soon  afterward,  took 
command  of  the  second  division  of  General 
Burnside's  corps  in  Virginia.  But  it  was  written 
that  his  sun  should  go  down  at  noon.  On  Sep 
tember  ist,  1862,  at  Chantilly,  seeing  the  Army 
about  to  be  attacked  at  a  great  disadvantage,  he 
ordered  a^  charge  by  his  own  divison,  and  sent 
one  of  the  captains  of  his  staff  to  other  division 
commanders  for  assistance  ;  but  none  of  these, 
except  General  Kearney,  would  take  the  repon- 
sibility  of  acting  without  orders  from  their 
superiors  in  command. 

General  Kearney  saw  the  supreme  peril  of 
the  situation,  and  felt  as  Admiral  Villeneuve 
felt  on  a  similar  occasion,  when  he  signalled, 
"Every  captain  who  is  not  in  action  is  not  at  his 


66         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

post."  "Yes,"  replied  Kearney,  "I'll  support 
Stevens  in  anything,"  and  at  once  put  his 
columns  in  motion. 

By  this  bold  movement,  Pope's  Army  was 
saved ;  and  the  battle  of  Chantilly,  which 
promised  victory  to  the  Confederates,  ended 
in  their  defeat.  But  General  Stevens  was  shot 
in  leading  his  troops  to  the  charge.  General 
Kearney,  riding  accidentally  in  the  darkness  of 
the  night  within  the  Confederate  lines,  was  also 
killed. 

Stevens  was  a  native  of  Andover,  Mass., 
a  son  of  the  late  Nathaniel  Stevens,  and  a 
brother  of  Oliver  Stevens,  the  District  Attorney 
of  Suffolk.  He  had  previously  been  Governor 
of  Oregon,  and  had  sat  in  Congress.  To  sooth 
the  South,  he  had  favored  the  largest  conces 
sions  to  their  demands  ;  but  when  the  dissolution 
of  the  Union  by  force  was  attempted,  he 
tendered  his  sword  to  the  Federal  Administra 
tion.  His  services  were  accepted,  but  he  was 
not  given  the  rank  to  which  he  justly  thought 
himself  entitled  by  virtue  of  his  education  and 
previous  service,  because  of  his  former  affilations. 
One  of  the  newspapers  bitterly  complained  that 
whereas  General  Stevens  had  been  Chairman 
of  the  Breckenridge  Democracy,  in  1860,  and 
had  professed  himself  a  friend  of  the  South  and 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE,         67 

its  peculiar  institutions,  and  had  a  few  months 
before  partaken  of  the  hospitalities  of  Charleston, 
he  now  came  with  a  hostile  force  on  an  abolition 
crusade.0 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Battle  of  Pocotaligo — Battle  of  Coosawhatchie 
— Attempt  to  raise  the  Blockade  of  Charleston — 
Battle  between  the  Iron-Clads  and  the  Forts — 
Dupont's  Prizes. 

The  Charleston  and  Savannah  Railroad  was 
of  the  first'importance  to  the  Confederate  forces 
in  this  department,  because,  upon  an  attack  at 
either  end  of  that  line,  the  force  at  the  other  end 
could  be  relied  on  for  support.  Colonel  B.  C. 
Christ,  with  the  Fifteenth  Pennsylvania,  two 
Companies  of  First  Massachusetts  Cavalry,  and 
a  section  of  the  First  Connecticut  Battery,  had 
destroyed  several  miles  of  this  railroad,  by  order 
of  General  Stevens,  shortly  before  the  battle 

*See  Appleton's  Animal  Cyclopaedia,  1862,  article 
"Stevens."  In  the  article  on  the  Army  Operations  of 
this  year,  the  battle  of  Secessionville  is  not  mentioned. 

Injustice  to  General  Bcnham,  I  refer  to  an  able  de 
fence  of  his  conduct,  in  Putnam,  vol.  6,  pp.  236-241. 


68         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

of   Secessionville,   but    the    damages  had    been 
promptly  repaired  by  the  Confederates. 

The  Count  of  Paris,  combining  in  himself 
the  instincts  and  accomplishments  of  a  soldier, 
a  sailor,  a  scholar  and  a  statesman,  has  given  an 
admirable  account  of  the  attempts  which  our 
military  and  naval  forces,  under  General  Bran- 
nan  and  Captain  Steedman  respectively,  made 
to  cut  this  railroad  in  October,  1862,  and  of  the 
battles  which  they  fought  at  Pocotaligo  and  at 
Coosawhatchie.  * 

The  attack  of  the  Confederate  rams  on  the 
Federal  gunboats  off  Charleston,  on  January 
3  ist,  1863,  is  imperfectly  recorded  by  all  the 
historians  of  the  late  war.  And  I  venture  to 
observe  that  too  little  attention  has  been  given 
to  the  peculiar  circumstances  under  which  that 
attack  was  made,  and  which,  in  fact,  probably 
led  to  it ;  for  on  no  other  occasion  did  the  Con 
federate  rams  ever  assume  the  offensive  at 
Charleston. 

It  must  be  remembered  that,  on  the  pre 
ceding  day,  the  Steamer  Isaac  Smith,  while  mak 
ing  a  reconnoisance  on  the  Stono,  went  too  far 

"Volume  2,  pp.  622-G26.  Greeley's  account,  (vol.  2,  p. 
462,)  and  Lossing's,  (vol.  3,  p.  189,)  are  less  full,  and 
both  exaggerate  the  losses  on  our  side.  See  the  reports 
of  the  commanders  on  both  sides  in  Putnam,  vol.  6,  pp. 
34-41. 


LIFE  A  PL  OAT  A  ND  A  SHORE.         69 

up  that  stream,  and  was  destroyed  on  her  re 
turn  by  three  batteries,  which  were  suddenly 
unmasked  at  one  of  the  many  bends  in  that 
serpentine  channel. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  two  of  the 
strongest  vessels  of  the  blockading  fleet  had 
gone  to  Port  Royal  to  coal,  leaving  the  blockade 
exceptionally  weak  just  at  that  time. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  noble 
blockade-runner,  Princess  Royal,  (the  gross  pro 
ceeds  of  which  steamer,  with  her  cargo,  even  at 
a  marshal's  sale  in  Philadelphia,  amounted  to 
$360,000)  had  just  been  run  ashore  and  captured 
by  the  blockading  fleet,  and  was  lying  off  the 
bar,  almost  challenging  an  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  Confederates  to  wrest  her  from  our  grasp. 

Moreover,  one  of  these  rams  had  been  re 
cently  built  by  the  proceeds  of  a  great  fair,  held 
by  the  ladies  of  Charleston,  who  had  not  shrunk 
from  the  greatest  exertions  and  sacrifices  for  the 
cause  of  Southern  Independence  ;  and  there  was 
a  general  demand  on  the  part  of  the  ladies  who 
led  society  in  Charleston  for  a  demonstration  by 
the  Confederate  Navy,  commensurate  with  their 
own  efforts,  for  that  cause. 

"  It  was  known,"  says  the  Charleston  Cou 
rier  of  February  2d,  in  its  glowing  account  of 
this  "  Brilliant  Naval  Victory ;"  "  it  was  known 


70         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

that  the  vessels  guarding  the  approaches  to  the 
city  were  of  wood,  and  could  not  cope  with  the 
mailed  rams  whose  grotesque  ugliness  and  saucy 
look  we  had  so  often  admired."  It  was  also 
known  that  the  New  Ironsides  was  soon  to  join 
the  blockading  fleet.* 

Besides  all  this,  it  was  well  known  through 
out  the  South  that  Napoleon  the  Third  had  re 
cently  made  overtures  to  Great  Britain  and  Rus 
sia,  looking  to  mediation  and  recognition  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  and  even  to  intervention 
in  its  behalf, f  and  though  the  reply  of  Russia 
was  not  all  that  could  be  desired  by  the  Confed 
erates,  or  by  Napoleon  himself,  it  strongly  indi 
cated  that  a  few  more  victories  in  the  field  of 
battle,  especially  if  accompanied  by  the  break 
ing  of  our  blockade,  might  secure  that  recog 
nition  which  had  thus  far  been  withheld. 

Practically  then,  (strange  to  say,)  Great 
Britain  was  thus  the  only  obstacle  in  the  path  of 
that  recognition  which  France  proposed,  and  to 
which  her  Emperor  was  willing  to  add  an  alli- 

*Boynton  innocently  remarks,  "No  one  of  our  iron 
clads  seems  to  have  been  at  that  time  off  the  harbor," 
vol.  2.  p.  432  As  though  any  of  our  iron-clads  had  been 
there  before. 

fAppleton's  Annual  Cyclopedia,  1862,  article,  "Pub 
lic  Documents,"  contains  this  correspondence.  The  De 
partment  of  State  also  printed  it. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.         7 1 

ance  offensive  and  defensive  with  the  Confeder 
ate  States.  If  then  the  Federal  blockade  of 
Charleston  could  be  raised,  might  not  Great  Brit 
ain  withdraw  her  negative  upon  the  policy  of 
France  ? 

It  was  with  reference  to  this,  as  I  have  been 
told,  that  a  Southern  preacher  preached  a  power 
ful  and  passionate  political  sermon  from  the  text, 
"  There  is-  a  lion  in  the  way,"  vehemently  de 
nouncing  the  British  Lion  for  placing  himself 
across  the  track  of  Southern  Independence, 
when  the  Pope  of  Rome  had  recognized  and 
blessed  the  standard  of  the  South  as  equal  in 
the  temporal  order  with  the  banner  of  St.  Peter. 

The  Federal  fleet,  at  this  time,  consisted  of 
the  Housatonic,  Captain  W.  R  Taylor,  senior 
officer  present ;  the  Mercedita,  Captain  F.  S. 
Stellwagen  ;  the  Flag,  Commander].  H.  Strong; 
the  Quaker  City,  Commander  J.  M.  Frailey; 
the  Key  Stone  State,  Commander  W.  E.  Le- 
Roy  ;  the  Augusta,  Commander  E.  G.  Parrott  ; 
the  Unadilla,  Lieutenant-Commander  S.  P. 
Quackenbush  :  the  Memphis,  Lieutenant-Com 
mander  P.  G.  Watmough ;  the  Ottawa,  Lieu 
tenant  Commander  W.  D.  Whiting  ;  the  Stettin, 
Lieutenant  C.  J.  Van  Alstine  ;  together  with 
the  Schooner  Blunt  and  the  Yacht  America. 

The  fleet  of   Flag  Officer  Ingraham   con- 


72         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

sisted  of  his  Flagship,  the  Palmetto  State,  an 
iron-clad  steamer,  built  after  the  style  of  the 
Atlanta,  commanded  by  Captain  Rutledge  ;  and 
the  Chicora,  another  iron-clad  steamer,  of  the 
same  style  of  construction,  commanded  by  Cap 
tain  Tucker;  with  three  steamers  acting  as  tend 
ers — the  Governor  Clinch,  the  Ettiwan,  and  the 
Chesterfield. 

The  Palmetto  State,  approaching  the  Mer- 
ceclita  unsuspected  in  the  darkness,  was  hailed 
by  her  watch  officer :  "  What  steamer  is  that  ? 
DVop  your  anchor.  Back — back.  Steer  clear  of 
us  and  heave  to."  Captain  Rutledge  answered  : 
"This  is  the  Confederate  States  Steamer  Pal 
metto  State," — at  the  same  time  ramming  the 
Mercedita  through  amidships,  at  and  below  the 
water  line,  and  discharging  a  seven-inch  shell 
from  his  bow  gun,  which,  entering  the  starboard 
side  of  the  Mercedita,  passed  through  her  con 
denser  and  the  steam  drum  of  her  port  boiler, 
and  exploded,  passing  through  her  port  side, 
killing  and  scalding  her  men,  and  so  completely 
disabling  her,  that  Captain  Stellwagen  at  once 
hauled  down  his  flag.  The  Confederate  Captain 
ordered  him  to  send  a  boat,  which  was  done,  and 
Lieutenant  Commander  Abbot  went  aboard  and 
gave  his  parole  in  behalf  of  himself  and  all  the 
officers  and  crew.  Upon  this  pledge,  not  to  serve 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         73 

Sullivan's  Island. 

.1 
Beach  Channel. 


Shoals. 

•    4 

• 


•     6 

7 


Main  Channel  • 

•     8 
•     9 
•  10 


Island. 

The  dotted  line  indicates  the  bar.  The  flgues  1  —  10 
show  the  positions  of  the  blockading  vessels.  The  rams 
passed  down  the  main  ship  channel,  crossed  the  bar,  and 
turning,  one  to  the  right,  the  other  to  the  left,  attacked 
the  first  vessels  they  met.  Then  turning  to  the  north 
east,  (the  battle  ended,)  they  recrossed  the  bar,  lay  seven 
hours  in  the  beach  channel  and  then  returned  to  the  inner 
harbor  of  Charleston.  The  distance  from  the  right  to  the 
left  of  our  line  was  about  twelve  miles. 


74        LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

against  the  Confederate  States  until  regularly 
exchanged,  Abbot  was  allowed  to  return  to  his 
ship,  but  no  further  steps  were  taken  to  secure 
her. 

Meantime,  the  Chicora  attacked  the  Key 
Stone  State,  giving  her  a  shot  from  her  bow  gun 
and  afterwards  a  broadside.  In  the  fight  which 
ensued,  the  Chicora  sent  a  shot  through  both 
the  chimneys  of  the  Key  Stone  State,  and  struck 
her  with  ten  rifle  shells,  (two  of  them  bursting  on 
her  quarter  deck,)  killing  twenty  of  her  crew, 
including  her  surgeon,  and  wounding  twenty 
more,  and  utterly  disabling  her. 

By  this  time  other  vessels  of  our  fleet,  hear 
ing  guns  and  signals  of  distress,  came  from  their 
several  stations  off  the  bar  to  the  help  of  their 
consorts.  Seeing  these,  the  Confederate  Flag 
Officer  speedily  abandoned  the  struggle.  On 
his  return  to  Charleston,  he  and  General  Beau- 
regard  issued  a  proclamation  that  the  blockade 
had  been  raised.  A  counter  statement  was  made 
by  the  captains  of  the  blockading  fleet,  and  no 
ship  attempted  to  act  on  the  faith  of  the  pro 
clamation. 

Although  the  greater  part  of  the  fighting 
on  the  Confederate  side  was  done  by  the  Chi 
cora,  the  narratives  of  Greeley,  Lossing,  Boyn- 
ton,  and  a  score  more  writers,  erroneously  credit 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         75 

the  Palmetto  State  with  two  separate  battles, 
first  with  the  Mercedita,  and  then  with  the  Key 
Stone  State. * 

None  of  our  historians  seem  to  have  read 
the  testimony  before  the  naval  court  of  inquiry 
touching  this  battle. 

A  question  arose,  whether  the  parole  of  the 
Mercedita's  officers  and  crew  was  binding  upon 
them,  after  the  Confederate  fleet  had  abandoned 
them.  A  similar  question  arose  a  few  months 
later,  when  the  Army  Steamer,  George  Wash 
ington,  was  destroyed  by  the  Confederates  near 
Beaufort.  The  officer  in  command  ran  up  a 
white  flag,  and  then  ran  away,  with  his  men,  to 
the  Beaufort  shore.  They  were  fired  on,  as  they 
ran  through  the  marshes,  by  the  Confederates, 
who  treated  their  attempt  to  escape  as  a  resutn- 
tion  of  hostilities.  Admiral  Semmes  followed 
these  precedents,  when  he  struck  his  flag  to  the 
Kearsage,  and  then  jumped  overboard. 

It  seems  clear  that  it  is  the  right,  if  not  the 
duty,  of  a  prisoner  of  war  to  escape  if  he  can  ; 

*The  reports  of  all  the  commanders  on  b -th  sides 
are  printed  in  Putnam's  Rebellion  Record,  vol  6,  pp.  401- 
415.  But  the  editor  should  have  punctuated  them  with 
the  names  of  the  several  vessels  referred  to.  Not  bein<* 
able  in  the  darkness  to  identify  the  opposing  ships,  these 
commanders  had  to  use  descriptive  phrases.  Not  one 
reader  in  ten  thousand  can  now  tell  to  what  vessels  these 
phrases  apply. 


76        LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

and  the  duty  of  a  captor  to  hold  his  prisoner  if 
he  can.  By  neglecting  to  follow  up  the  capture 
of  the  Mercedita,  by  putting  a  prize  master  on 
board  of  her,  it  would  seem  pretty  clear  that 
Commodore  Ingraham  abandoned  his  conquest, 
and  thereby  relieved  his  prisoners  from  their 
parole. 

Considering  that,  as  Commodore  Ingraham 
says,  (in  his  official  dispatch  to  Secretary  Mall- 
ory,)  "  everything  was  most  favorable  for " 
the  Confederate  rams,  the  wonder  is,  that  they 
did  not  achieve  in  fact  what  the  Confederate 
commanders  claimed  to  have  achieved.  Had 
the  Confederate  Captain  Buchanan  been  in 
command  of  these  rams,  the  result  might  have 
been  different.  The  Confederate  Rams  passed 
within  the  shadow  of  a  great  opportunity  ;  but 
they  failed  to  take  advantage  of  it ;  and  it  never 
occurred  again. 

During  seven  mortal  hours  after  the  battle, 
these  rams  lay  at  anchor,  at  the  entrance  of 
Beach  Channel,  waiting  for  the  rising  of  the 
tide  to  take  them  back  to  the  city.  Most  of  the 
Federal  vessels  returned  to  their  stations  out 
side  the  bar  in  full  view.  I  have  been  told,  and 
can  readily  believe,  that  during  this  time,  some 
of  the  younger  officers  and  men  of  the  rams 
became  disgusted  with  the  situation,  and  impa- 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         77 

tient  to  resume  the  fight.  Could  the  Confederate 
States  have  had,  but  for  one  hour,  the  services 
of  Farragut,  or  of  Porter  ;  or  could  the  soul  of 
one  of  those  old  Titans  of  the  sea,  under  whom 
the  English,  French,  Dutch,  and  American  Nav 
ies  won  their  great  historic  renown,  have  entered 
into  and  taken  possession  of  Ingraham  on  that 
dark  winter's  morning  ;  how  different  might  the 
course  of  events  have  been  ! 

Having  had  but  little  personal  connection 
at  any  time  with  the  operations  on  the  southern 
part  of  the  coast  assigned  to  the  South  Atlantic 
Blockading  Squadron,  my  journal  contains  noth 
ing  touching  various  events  which  occurred  in 
that  region  additional  to  what  will  be  found  in 
the  narratives  of  the  historians,  to  whose  vol 
umes  I  so  often  refer : — such  as  the  destruction 
of  the  Nashville,  which  even  Dupont  calls  a 
"privateer;"  the  storming  of  Fort  McAllister; 
the  bombardment  and  capture  of  Fort  Pulaski ; 
and  the  capture  of  the  Atlanta.  One  of  the 
very  best  accounts  of  the  battle  between  the 
Weehawkinand  the  Atlanta,  June  17,  1863,  will 
be  found  where  one  rarely  looks  for  a  graphic 
picture  of  a  battle,  in  Judge  Sprague's  decision 
condemning  the  Atlanta  as  a  prize. * 

*2  Sprague's  Decisions,  p.  253.  The  opinions  of 
Judges  Sprague,  Lowell,  and  Blatchford,  in  prize  cases, 
are  valuable  to  the  historian  as  well  as  the  lawyer. 


;8         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

The  battle  between  the  iron-clads  and  the 
forts  of  Charleston,  had  been  long  in  prepara 
tion  ;  and  when  it  was  finally  fought,  April  /th, 
1863,  it  was  witnessed  and  reported  by  many  of 
the  ablest  writers  in  all  the  leading  newspapers, 
both  North  and  South.  The  best  of  the  reports 
is  that  of  William  Swinton,  the  historian  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  in  the  New  York  Times  * 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  fight  this  battle  over 
again  ;  but  merely  to  correct  some  of  the  errors, 
and  supply  some  of  the  omissions  of  the  popu 
lar  historians. 

All  of  these  writers  state  that  General  G. 
T.  Beauregard  commanded  the  Department,  and 
Brigadier-General  R.  S.  Ripley,  the  First  Mili 
tary  District,  at  the  time  of  the  battle ;  but 
none  of  them  give  the  names  of  the  subordinate 
commanders  or  of  their  commands. 

Bragadier- General  Trapier,  commanding 
second  subdivision  of  this  district,  was  present 
at  Fort  Moultrie  ;  Brigadier-General  Gist,  com 
manding  first  subdivision,  at  Fort  Johnson  ; 
Colonel  R.  F.  Graham,  commanding  third  sub 
division,  on  Morris  Island,  and  Colonel  L.  M. 
Keitt,  commanding  Sullivan's  Island,  at  Battery 
Bee,  attending  to  their  duties  and  awaiting  the 
development  of  the  attack. 

*It  is  reprinted  in  Putnam,  vol.  f>,  pp.  502-512,  and 
with  it  is  that  of  the  Charleston  Mercury. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         79 

The  fortifications  engaged  were  those  which 
formed  what  General  Ripley  called  his  "  first 
circle  of  fire."  There  were  six  of  them — Sum- 
ter,  Moultrie.  Bee,  Beauregard,  Wagner  and 
Gregg  ;  and  they  were  commanded  and  garri 
soned  as  follows  : — 

FORT  SUMTER  —  Colonel  Alfred  Rhett  ; 
Lieutenant  Colonel  J.  A.  Yates,  and  Major 
Ormsby  Blanding,  with  seven  companies  of  the 
First  South  Carolina  Artillery. 

FORT  MOULTRIE — Colonel  William  But 
ler,  and  Major  T.  M.  Baker,  with  five  companies 
of  the  First  South  Carolina  Infantry. 

BATTERY  BEE — Lieutenant  Colonel  J.  C. 
Simkins,  with  three  companies  oi  the  First 
South  Carolina  Infantry. 

BATTERY  BEAUREGARD — Captain  J.  A.  Sit- 
greaves,  with  two  South  Carolina  companies — 
one  of  Artillery  and  one  of  Infantry. 

BATTERY  WAGNER — Major  C.  K.  Huger, 
with  two  companies  of  the  First  South  Carolina 
Artillery. 

BATTERY  GREGG — Lieutenant  H.  R.  Les- 
esne,  with  a  detachment  of  the  First  South 
Carolina  Artillery. 

Several  companies  of  the  Twentieth  South 
Carolina  Infantry,  under  Captain  P.  A.  McMi- 
chael,  stood  on  Sullivan's  Island  to  repel  any 


So         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

attack  by  land  ;  while  the  Twenty-first  South 
Carolina  Infantry,  under  Lieutenant  Colonel 
Dargan,  occupied  Morris  Island,  for  the  same 
purpose. 

The  Confederate  iron-clads  Chicora  and 
Palmetto  State,  under  Captain  J.  R.  Tucker,  lay 
above  Fort  Sumter,  the  principal  point  of  at 
tack,  but  took  no  part  in  the  engagement. 

Dupont  led  the  attack  with  his  pennant  fly 
ing  from  the  Ironsides.  His  ships  advanced  in 
single  file — four  monitors,  the  flag-ship,  three 
monitors,  and  the  iron-clad,  Keokuk,  as  follows  : 

1.  Weehawken,  Captain  John  Rodgers  ; 

2.  Passaic,  Captain  Percival  Drayton  ; 

3.  Montauk,  Commander  John  L.  Worden  ; 

4.  Patapsco,  Commander  Daniel  Ammen  ; 

5.  New  Ironsides,  Commander  Thos.  Turner; 

6.  Catskill,  Commander  George  W.  Rodgers  ; 

7.  Nantucket,  Commander  Donald  M.  Fairfax  ; 

8.  Nahant,  Commander  John  Downes,; 

9.  Keokuk,  Lieut. -Commander  A.  C.  Rhind. 

Captain  Joseph  F.  Green  lay  outside  with 
the  Steamers  Canandaigua,  Housatonic,  Una- 
dilla,  Wissahickon,  and  Huron,  as  a  force  in  re 
serve.  General  Seymour  lay  below,  with  a  mil 
itary  force,  ready  to  assist  the  Navy  by  a  descent 
upon  Morris  Island,  or  upon  Sullivan's  Island, 
or  in  any  other  way. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         81 

The  sky  and  the  sea  shone  like  seas  of 
glass,  "  the  blue  above,  and  the  blue  below ;"  no 
sound  was  heard,  no  shot  was  fired  on  either 
side,  and  not  a  man  was  seen  on  the  decks  of 
the  monitors,  as  our  turtle-backed  fleet  steamed 
along  in  front  of  Morris  Island,  until  it  came 
within  range  of  Sumter.  Then,  at  ten  minutes 
past  three,  the  batteries  of  that  grim  fort  opened, 
and  those  on  Morris  and  Sullivan's  Islands 
promptly  joined. 

The  ships  of  Dupont,  formed  in  line  of  bat 
tle,  (not  "huddled  helplessly  together,"  as 
Boynton  erroneously  states,)  instantly  returned 
the  fire  of  the  forts.  The  thunder  of  artillery 
became  terrific ;  the  water  seemed  to  boil  and 
hiss,  when  struck  by  solid  shot  or  exploding 
shell ;  clouds  of  smoke  and  flashes  of  fire  filled 
the  air  for  two  miles,  from  Sullivan's  to  Morris 
Island. 

The  result  is  known  to  all.  In  thirty  min 
utes  Dupont  became  "  convinced  of  the  utter 
impracticability  of  taking  the  city  of  Charleston 
with  the  force  under  his  command ;"  and  every 
one  of  his  commanders  concurred  in  this  view. 
Brave  as  Dupont  was,  the  defences  of  Charles 
ton  had  been  so  perfected  by  the  Confederates, 
that  he  feared  and  said  that  "  a  renewal  of  the 
attack  on  Charleston  would  be  attended  with 


82         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYER'S 

disastrous  results,  involving  the  loss  of  this 
coast."0  But  the  Rev.  Dr.  Boynton  thinks  that 
"Dupont  was  mistaken  in  all  his  main  opinions.'' 

Many  writers  have  stated  the  number  of 
guns  engaged  on  the  Confederate  side  to  be 
300  ;  some,  350  ;  and  some,  400.  But  there  were 
not  300  guns  mounted  in  all  the  defences  of 
Charleston  ;  and  the  guns  of  the  second  and 
third  circles  of  fire  were  not  engaged. 

The  nine  Federal  iron-clads  carried  thirty- 
three  guns,  twenty-three  of  which  were  actually 
used.  The  six  Confederate  works  mounted 
seventy-six  guns,  of  which  sixty-nine  were  actu 
ally  used.  No  matter  how  often  the  experiment 
is  'made  ;  as  often  as  sixty-nine  guns  are  used 
against  twenty-three,  afloat  or  ashore,  I  venture 
to  predict  that  the  sweet  goddess  of  Victory  will 
bestow  her  most  bewitching  smile  on  the  party 
that  has  the  heaviest  artillery. 

The  Federals  fired  139  fires — 96  shells,  30 
solid  shot,  and  13  cored  shot.  Of  these,  55 
struck  the  walls  of  Sumter,  two  of  the  shells 
passing  through  her  walls. 

The  Confederates  fired  2,229  shots,  with 
21,093  pounds  of  cannon  powder,  and  hit  the 
iron-clads  248  times. 

*The  reports  of  Dupont  and  his  captains  are  ap 
pended  to  Secretary  Welles'  report  for  1863,  and  reprinted, 
in  substance,  in  the  second  volume  of  Boynton. 


LIFE  APL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.         83 

It  is  true,  the  guns  of  the  Federals  were  of 
larger  calibre  than  most  of  those  on  the  Confed- 

o 

erate  side,  so  that  the  weight  of  metal  was  more 
nearly  equal,  (as  General  Ripley  suggests  ;)  and 
the  Federals  had  also  a  broad  mark  to  aim  at, 
while  the  Confederates  had  much  smaller  tar 
gets  ; — but  the  advantage  of  position  was  clearly 
with  the  Confederates.* 

Mr.  Lossing  suggests  that,  "  Had  a  suffi 
cient  supporting  land  force  been  employed  in 
vigorously  attacking  the  Confederates  on  Morris 
Island,  and  keeping  the  garrisons  of  Battery 
Gregg  and  Fort  Wagner  engaged  while  the 
squadron  was  attacking  Fort  Sumter,  the  result 
might  have  been  different."  It  is  seldom  worth 
speculating  on  what  might  have  been.  But  an 
answer  to  Mr.  Lossing's  suggestion  is  found  in 
the  failure  of  all  subsequent  attempts  to  carry 
Wagner  by  storm,  and  in  the  terrible  sacrifices 
of  life  which  they  involved. 

Admiral  Dupont  remained  in  command  of 
the  South  Atlantic  Blockading  Squadron  three 
months  after  this  repulse.  During  his  command 
32  prizes  were  taken  at  Charleston,  although,  it 
is  to  be  noted,  no  part  of  the  blockading  fleet 
lay  within  the  Bar,  namely: — 

*See  the  reports  of  the  Confederate   commanders  in 
Putnam,  vol.  10,  pp.  517-535. 


84        LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Albert,  Aquilla,  Anna  Dees,  Antelope, 
Amelia,  Belle,  Coquette,  Cambria,  Cora,  Cata- 
lina,  David  Crockett,  Dixie,*  Emily  St.  Pierre, 
Elizabeth,  Eliza,  Flash,  Guide,  Hettiwan,  Hav- 
elock,  Louisa,  Maria,  Mary  Teresa,  Mercury, 
Major  E.  Willis,  Neptune,  Patras,  Providence, 
Princess  Royal,  Rebecca,  Stettin,  Sarah  and 
Secesh. 

In  his  time,  the  Yacht  America  was  cap 
tured  by  the  Steamer  Ottowa,  and  transferred 
to  the  Army.  She  is  now  in  the  hands  of  Gen 
eral  Butler. 

Besides  Charleston,  upwards  of  twenty 
other  ports  were  guarded  by  this  squadron  ;  and 
more  prizes,  in  the  aggregate,  were  taken  at  these 
other  ports  than  at  Charleston.  Some  of  Du- 
pont's  prizes  were  very  valuable,  as  the  Atlanta, 
valued  at  $350,000 ;  the  Cambria,  $191,000 ;  the 
Lodona,  $246,000  ;  the  Princess  Royal,  $360,- 
ooo ;  the  Stettin,  $226,000,  etc. 

Within  two  months  after  Ingraham's  at 
tempt  to  raise  the  blockade  with  the  rams,  three 
European  men-of-war  touched  off  the  bar,  and 
sent  a  boat  to  the  city  with  dispatches  to  their 
consuls.  I  refer  to  the  British  Steam  Sloop 
Desperate,  February  27 ;  the  British  Frigate 

*She  had  been  a  privateer.     See  page  29.     She  was 
sold  for  $30,000. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         85 

Cadmus,   March   2,   and    the   French   Steamer 
Milan,  March,  30. 

In  Dupom's  time,  no  foreign  vessel  of  war 
was  prevented  from  visiting  any  blockaded  port. 
This  was  in  conformity  with  the  proclamation  of 
blockade  and  the  practice  of  the  most  liberal 
nations  ;  though  at  a  later  period,  it  was  held 
by  his  successor  that  "  the  intervention  of  our 
lines  of  attack"  prevented  this.* 


CHAPTER  V. 

Admiral  Dahlgren  in  command — Descent  on 
Morris  Island — General  Strong — Storming  of  Fort 
Wagner — Morris  Island  evacuated — Naval  Assault 
on  Fort  Sumter — Blockade-running — Torpedo  At 
tack  on  the  Ironsides — Loss  of  the  Weehawken. 

Admiral  Dahlgren  relieved  Admiral  Du- 
poat,  July  6,  1863.  General  Gilmore  had  pre 
viously  relieved  General  Hunter,  and  a  joint 
movement  was  made  upon  Morris  Island.  Pre 
paratory  to  this  movement,  Folly  Island,  which 
General  Beauregard  had  not  fortified  at  all,  was 
occupied  by  General  Vogdes,  who  secretly,  with 
great  adroitness,  erected  a  battery  on  the  north- 

*Dahlgren's  Maritime  International  Law,  pp.  54-60. 


86         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

ern  extremity  of  the  island,  and  placed  47  pieces 
of  artillery  in  position  within  pistol*  shot  of  the 
Confederates,  on  Morris  Island,  without  being 
discovered  at  all.  The  great  importance  of  this 
bold  achievement  of  Vogdes,  will  readily  appear 
when  one  considers  the  position  of  this  Island, 
which  commands  Stono  Harbor,  Stono  Inlet,  the 
water  approaches  to  James  Island,  and  the  south 
erly  extremity  of  Morris  Island. 

While  most  of  the  writers,  on  the  Federal 
side,  bestow  little  praise  on  Vogdes,  Pollard  takes 
occasion  to  give  Beauregard  a  lecture  for  his 
"  want  of  vigilance  "  in  not  guarding  against  this 
surprise.  * 

The  historians  of  the  War  trace,  more  or  less 
accurately,  the  progress  of  the  descent  upon 
Morris  Island,  henceforth  famous  in  history  ; 
but  none  of  them  have  caught  sight  of  the  strik 
ing  and  picturesque  figure  of  the  youthful  Gen 
eral  Strong,  springing  upon  the  lower  forts  with 
the  agility  of  a  deer,  waiving  aloft  his  sword,  and 
shouting  to  his  troops,  "  Come  on,  Brigade." 

In  jumping  impatiently  from  the  launch  into 
the  surf  beating  upon  the  beach,  his  high-topped 
cavalry  boots  were  filled  with  water,  and  his 
clothes  wet  through.  Thereupon  he  threw  off 
his  coat  and  hat,  and  sat  down  upon  the  bank, 
*History  of  the  Lost  Cause,  p.  430. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.         87 

while  his  faithful  negro  boy  made  a  bootjack  of 
himself,  and  removed  the  incumbrances.  Time 
was  then  too  precious  to  waste  on  hose,  so  Gen. 
Strong  led  the  charge  of  July  roth  in  his 
stockings,  getting  his  feet  repeatedly  cut  by  oys 
ter  shells  at  different  points  on  the  beach. 

In  the  Romances,  falsely  called  Histories, 
of  different  wars,  one  sees  the  General  hand 
somely  dressed,  cavorting  upon  a  horse  richly 
caparisoned.  In  the  grim  and  bloody  reality, 
the  General  more  often  fights  in  a  plight  as  un 
presentable  as  that  of  the  gallant  Strong.  Na 
poleon  crossed  the  Alps  wrapped  in  a  grey  over 
coat  and  mufler,  mounted  upon  an  humble  mule, 
led  by  a  young  mountaineer,  who  did  not  know 
him;  but  David  paints  him  wrapped  in  imperial 
purple,  bounding  over  the  Alps  upon  a  fiery 
stallion. 

In  all  the  annuls  of  modern  war,  no  example 
can  be  found  where  an  army  thus  approached  an 
enemy's  shore  in  boats,  landed  under  a  fire  of 
artillery  and  infantry,  and  disloged  the  enemy 
from  his  fortifications.  The  descent  on  Morris 
Island  almost  recalls  Caeser's  descent  on  Brit 
ain,  or  the  landing  of  William  the  Norman  at 
Hastings. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  Charleston  Mer 
cury  foreshadowed  this  "assault  from  barges" 


88         LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

on  the  very  morning  it  was  made,  but  closed  by 
saying,  "  We  see  no  ground  for  agitation." 

This  descent  would  not  have  been  attempted 
without  the  aid  of  the  Navy.  Admiral  Dahlgren, 
with  his  flag  flying  from  the  Catskill,  led  four 
monitors  over  the  bar  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing,  as  follows  : — 

1.  Catskill,  Commander  George  H.  Rodgers  ; 

2.  Montauk,  Commander  D.  McN.  Fairfax  ; 

3.  Nahant,  Commander  John  Downes  ; 

4.  Weehawken,  Commander  E.  R.  Colhoun. 
These  monitors  approached  as  near  to  Mor 
ris  Island  as  the  depth  of  water  would  permit, 
and  moved  along  in  front  of  that  island,  shelling 
the   Confederates   vigorously  as  they  retreated, 
and  finally  opening  fire  on  Wagner.     On  that 
day,  they  fired  534  shell  and  shrapnell,  and  the 
Steamer  Catskill  was  struck  sixty  times.     Lieut 
enant-Commander   Francis  M.  Bunce,  with  four 
navy  howitzer  launches,  with  picked  crews,  cov 
ered  the  landing,  approaching  Light  House  Inlet 
by  way  of  Folly  Island  Creek,  at  day-break,  and 
engaging  the  rifle-pits  and  batteries  of  the  Con 
federates. 

The  regiments  here  engaged  were  the  Ninth 
Maine,  the  Third  New  Hampshire,  the  Sixth  and 
Seventh  Connecticut,  the  Forty -eighth  New 
York,  and  the  Seventy-sixth  Pennsylvania. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.         89 

The  Confederate  force  engaged  numbered 
about  seven  hundred,  and  consisted  of  the 
Twenty-first  South  Carolina  volunteers,  Colonel 
R.  T.  Graham  ;  two  companies  of  the  First  South 
Carolina  artillery,  Captains  John  C.  Mitchell, 
(son  of  the  Irish  refugee,)  and  J.  R.  Macbeth; 
and  a  detachment  of  the  First  South  Carolina 
infantry,  Captain  Charles  T.  Haskell. 

"Our  men,"  says  the  Charleston  Courier^ 
"  were  exposed  during  the  whole  fight  to  a  mur 
derous  fire  from  the  four  monitors,  who  hurled 
their  enormous  missiles  with  telling  effect." 

The  Edgefield  Advertiser  said,  the  roar  of 
the  Federal  guns  was  heard,  and  the  reports 
counted,  in  that  district,  distant  130  miles. 

Not  since  the  capture  of  Port  Royal,  had  the 
Federals  achieved  such  important  results  with 
such  small  losses.  Only  fourteen  were  killed, 
and  less  than  a  hundred  wounded  ;  while  the 
loss  of  the  Confederates,  in  killed  and  wounded 
and  captured,  was  294.  Captains  'Langdon 
Cheves  and  Charles  T.  Haskell,  and  Lieuten 
ant  John  S.  Bee,  were  among  the  killed ;  and 
.among  the  wounded  was  Captain  J.  R.  Macbeth, 
son  of  the  Mayor  of  Charleston,  and  nine  other 
commissioned  officers. 

After  sleeping  all  night  without  tents,  and 
almost  without  food,  on  the  morning  of  July 


90         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

nth,  the  Ninth  Maine,  the  Seventh  Connecticut 
and  the  Seventy-sixth  Pennsylvania,  under  Gen 
eral  Strong,  made  an  assault  on  Wagner.  The 
Seventh  reached  the  ditch  ;  but  the  other  regi 
ments,  especially  the  Pennsylvania  regiment, 
then  commanded  by  Major  Hicks,  failed  to 
come  up  in  support ;  and  Strong,  with  tears  of 
grief  and  mortification  rolling  down  his  cheeks, 
exclaimed  bitterly,  "  It  is  useless,"  and  ordered 
a  retreat. 

The  Confederate  loss  was  very  small — one 
officer  and  five  privates  killed  ;  one  officer  and 
five  privates  wounded.  The  loss  on  the  Federal 
side  has  often  been  understated.  The  Confed 
erates  buried  95  of  the  Federals  (chiefly  of  the 
Seventh  Connecticut)  within  •  their  lines,  and 
captured  210  prisoners,  eighty  of  whom  were 
wounded.  How  many  others  were  killed  and 
wounded,  I  never  learned  ;  but  the  correspond 
ent  of  the  Philadelphia  Inquirer  stated  that  350 
men  who  had  been  wounded  in  the  assault,  were 
carried  in  the  Steamer  Cosmopolitan  to  Hilton 
Head.  Among  the  wounded  was  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Rodman  of  the  Seventh  Connecticut, 
and  Major  Hicks  of  the  Seventy-sixth  Pennsyl 
vania,  who  was  also  captured. 

Greeley,  Harper,  Lossing,  Pollard,  and  oth 
ers,  couple  the  losses  of  the  roth  with  those  of 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         91 

the  nth,  and  their  statements  are  confused  and 
inaccurate.  * 

The  second  assault  on  Wagner  was  made 
on  Saturday  night,  July  18.  If  the  Federals 
had  gained  much  by  opening  the  "  parallels," 
the  Confederates  had  gained  more  by  reenforce- 
inents  from  North  Carolina  and  Georgia. 

General  William  Taliafero,  one  of  Stone 
wall  Jackson's  veterans,  commanded  the  Con 
federate  forces  at  Wagner,  (Beauregarcl  and 
Ripley  being  his  superior  officers,)  which  con 
sisted  of  the  Charleston  Battalion,  Lieutenant 
Colonel  Gaillard  and  Major  Ramsay  ;  the  Fifty- 
first  North  Carolina,  Colonel  McKeatchin  ;  and 
the  Thirty-first  North  Carolina,  Lieutenant 
Colonel  Knight.  There  were  also  two  compan 
ies  of  the  First  South  Carolina,  Captains  Tatum 
and  Adams  ;  two  companies  of  the  Sixty-third 
Georgia,  Captains  Buckner  and  Dixon ;  and 
Captain  DuPass'  company  of  light  artillery  ; — 
all  under  Lieutenant  Colonel  Simkins.  They 
were  reenforced  during  the  battle  by  the  Thirty- 
second  Georgia,  Colonel  Harrison.  The  guns 
of  Sumter  and  Gregg  joined  with  those  of  Wag 
ner  in  pouring  their  fire  upon  the  assaulting 
columns. 


*Greeley,  vol.  2,  pp.  475-476 ;  Harper,  740 ;  Lossing, 
vol.  3,  p.  202 ;  .Pollard,  431.  , 


92         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

The  assault  was  preceded  by  a  teriffic  bom 
bardment  from  the  New  Ironsides,  from  the  five 
monitors,  Montauk,  (carrying  the  flag  of  the  Ad 
miral,)  Catskill,  Nantucket,  Weehawken,  and 
Patapsco,  and  also  from  the  gunboats  Paul  Jones, 
Ottowa,  Seneca,  Cheppewa,  and  Wissahickon, 
as  well  as  from  several  sand  batteries  on  Morris 
Island. 

This  bombardment  lasted  eight  hours,  (not 
"forty-eight,"  as  Pollard's  types  make  him  say,) 
during  which  nine  thousand  shell  were  hurled 
at  the  fated  fort.  It  ceased  only  when  darkness 
came  on,  and  when  its  further  continuance  would 
have  involved  the  slaughter  of  the  assaulting 
column. 

The  brigades  which  Strong  and  Putnam 
led  in  this  assault,  were  formed  for  this  special 
service.  Some  of  the  regiments  had  never  met 
before,  and  had  never  before  seen  their  brig 
ade  commanders  or  the  colonels  who'  so  soon 
succeeded  them  in  command.  Strange  to  say, 
many  of  those  who  fought  in  that  terrible  com 
bat,  cannot  agree  as  to  the  composition  of  these 
brigades.  Gen.  Gillmore's  statement  of  the  com 
position  of  these  brigades  is  not  followed  by 
Greeley  or  Lossing,  and  is  not  entirely  correct. 

Colonel  Robert  G.  Shaw  led  the  attack 
with  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts  (colored). 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         93 

Among  the  non-commissioned  officers  and  priv 
ates  was  a  son  of  the  famous  Frederick  Douglass, 
with  many  other  superior  men.  But  at  this  time, 
all  the  commissioned  officers  were  white.  They 
went  forward  at  "  double  quick"  with  great  en 
ergy  and  resolution ;  but  on  approaching  the 
ditch  they  broke  :  the  greater  part  of  them  fol 
lowed  their  intrepid  colonel,  bounded  over  the 
ditch,  mounted  the  parapet,  and  planted  their 
flag  in  the  most  gallant  manner  upon  the  ram 
parts,  where  Shaw  was  shot  dead  ;  while  the  rest 
were  seized  with  a  furious  panic,  and  acted  like 
wild  beasts  let  loose  from  a  menagerie.  They 
came  down  first  on  the  Ninth  Maine,  and  then 
on  the  Seventy-sixth  Pennsylvania,  and  broke 
both  of  them  in  two.  Portions  of  the  Ninth  and 
Seventy-sixth  mingled  with  the  fugitives  of  the 
'Fifty-fourth,  arid  could  not  be  brought  to  the  fort. 
They  ran  away  like  deer,  some  crawling  upon 
their  hands  and  knees. 

The  Sixth  Connecticut,  Colonel  John  L. 
Chatfield,  followed  the  Fifty-fourth,  and  made  a 
furious  charge.  In  spite  of  the  most  deadly 
fire,  they  leaped  over  the  ditch,  bounded  upon 
the  parapet,  drove  the  Thirty-first  North  Carolina 
with  the  bayonet,  and  entered  the  south-east 
salient  of  the  fort.  It  is  a  fact,  (though  Northern 
historians  omit  to  mention  it,)  that  this  gallant 


94         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYEKS 

regiment  took  possession  of  the  south-east  angle 
of  the  fort,  and  held  it. for  three  mortal  hours. 
But  it  cost  a  terrible  sacrifice  of  life.  The  sur 
vivors  fought  with  the  dead  bfoclies  of  their  com 
rades  lying  three  deep  around  them.  Finally, 
for  want  of  support,  they  surrendered  ;  few,  if 
any,  of  them  being  able  to  get  out. 

General  Strong  exerted  himself  to  the  ut 
most  to  push  on  other  regiments  in  support  of 
the  heroic  Sixth.  He  placed  himself  at  the  head 
of  a  battallion  containing  what  remained  of  the 
immortal  Seventh  Connecticut,  and  to  them  he 
made  his  last  appeal. 

Here  Strong  fell,  mortally  wounded,  and  the 
command  of  the  column  passed  rapidly  from  one 
to  another  until  every  Federal  colonel  and  lieu 
tenant-colonel  present  at  the  fort  had  been  killed, 
wounded  or  captured.  When  it  finally  breke, 
the  ranking  officer  was  Major  Plimpton  of  the 
Third  New  Hampshire,  who  led  its  shattered 
fragments  into  the  sheltering  gloom. 

What  the  column  of  Strong  failed  to  accom 
plish,  the  column  of  Colonel  Putnam  was  not 
likely  to  achieve.  Colonel  Chatfield  was  the  sen 
ior  Colonel ;  he  had  commanded  a  brigade  be 
fore,  and  was  entitled  to  lead  this  second  column  ; 
but  he  waived  his  rank,  declaring  his  preference 
to  stand  or  fall  with  the  Sixth.  He  had  fallen, 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         95 

mortally  wounded,  before  Putnam's  column  ad 
vanced.  The  second  charge  was  not  less  furious 
than  Strong's.  Putnam  was  killed  almost  as 
soon  as  he  reached  the  fort ;  but  his  colonels 
continued  the  assault  unflinchingly  ;  falling  back 
only  when  no  possibility  of  success  remained. 

Putnam's  own  regiment,  the  Seventh  New 
Hampshire,  Lieutenant  Colonel  Abbott,  distin 
guished  itself  greatly.  The  Confederates  were 
moved  to  admiration  by  the  resolute  courage  of 
the  Forty-eighth  and  One  Hundreth  New  York, 
Colonels  Barton  and  Dandy,  and  of  the  Sixty- 
second  and  Sixty-seventh  Ohio,  Colonels  Steele 
and  Voris. 

It  was  near  midnight  when  the  last  shat 
tered  regiment  recoiled  from  this  terrible  carn 
age  ;  and  the  Confederates  poured  upon  their 
flying  foes  a  murderous  fire  of  grape  and  can- 
nister.  It  was  a  retreat  oi  unutterable  horrors. 
Men  fell  from  the  ramparts  of  Wagner,  some 
times  breaking  their  limbs  by  the  fall.  They 
rolled  one  upon  another  into  the  ditch,  and  were 
drowned  in  the  water  or  smothered  by  their  own 
dead  or  wounded  comrades  falling  upon  them. 
They  dragged  themselves  upon  their  hands  and 
knees  over  the  hills  and  ridges  of  sand. 

To  hundreds  of  poor  fellows  who  lay,  hour 
after  hour,  maimed  and  mangled,  on  the  bloody 


96        LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

beach  before  Wagner,  and,  piled  one  upon  an 
other,  in  the  ditches  around  it, — with  their  bones 
broken  and  their  wounds  bleeding, — choking 
with  thirst  and  writhing  in  agony, — praying,  cry 
ing,  lingering,  dying ; — it  seemed  as  if  morning 
would  never  come, — as  if  Nature  herself  felt 
outraged,  and  denied  the  light  of  day  to  a  planet 
presenting  so  ghastly  a  scene.  Seldom,  indeed, 
has  the  glad  sun  risen,  or  the  sad  sea  sobbed, 
over  so  horrible  a  spectacle.  Blood,  brains,  bow 
els,  bones,  arms,  legs,  hair,  fragments  of  bodies, 
black  and  white,  all  mingled  together,  with  sand, 
mud,  grass,  water,  patches  of  clothing,  broken 
gun  -  stocks  and  gun-barrels,  belts,  bayonets, 
boots,  shoes,  and  all  the  accompaniments  of  mil 
itary  art  and  life. 

The  Confederates  say  they  buried  six  hun 
dred  of  the  Federal  dead  upon  the  ocean  beach. 
The  wounded  who  survived  were  taken  to  prison 
hospitals  in  Charleston,  where,  as  "Personne" 
wrote,  their  blood  flowed  "  by  the  bucketful." 
The  wounds  were  generally  severe,  being  in 
flicted  at  short  distances,  so  that  "  amputations 
were  almost  the  only  operations  performed." 

The  ladies  of  Charleston,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  were  moved  to  many  acts  of 
kindness  towards  these  suffering  soldiers  ;  and 
their  sympathy  brought  upon  them  the  slurs  of 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         97 

the  local  press  as  "  troublesome  and  obtrusive 
persons  in  female  garb,"  who  ought  to  be  "  im 
pressed  into  service  as  nurses." 

Buried  with  his  own  sable  soldiers,  Shaw 
rests  by  the  moaning  sea, 

"  Like  Scipio  sleeping  on  the  upbraiding  shore." 

The  time  may  come,  when  the  opposite  sec 
tions  of  our  restored  Union  will  unite  to  erect 
here  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  the  heroes 
of  both  races,  who  fell  on  either  side.  Such  a 
shaft  would  swell  the  heart  and  fill  the  eye  of 
every  departing  and  returning  sailor.  Pilgrims 
from  afar  would  come  to  gaze  upon  it,  and  to  lift 
their  hats  to  it,  and  walk  around  it,  and  to  be 
consecrated  by  meditating  on  its  glorious  mem 
ories.  Of  such  a  monument  who  would  not  say, 
with  Webster  at  Bunker  Hill,  "  Let  it  rise  to 
meet  the  sun  in  his  coming.  Let  the  earliest 
light  of  the  morning  greet  it,  and  parting  day 
linger  and  play  upon  its  summit." 

No  detailed  report,  by  regiments,  of  killed, 
wounded  and  missing,  on  the  Federal  side, 
has  ever,  to  my  knowledge,  been  published. 
The  general  reports  vary — from  1,500  to  2,500. 

Among   the  killed  were  Colonels  Putnam 
and  Shaw,  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  Green  of  the>6  </ 
Sixth  Comteetictttv   Among  the  severely  wound 
ed  were  General  Strong  and  Colonel  Chatfield, 


98         LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYER'S 

(who  died  of  their  wounds,)  General  Sey 
mour,  and  Colonels  Barton,  Jackson  and  Emery. 
Among  the  captured  were  Lieutenant  Colonel 
Bedell  of  the  Third  New  Hampshire,  and  Major 
Filler  of  the  Fifty-fifth  Pennsylvania. 

The  causualties  among  company  officers 
were  as  fearful  as  among  the  field  officers. 
The  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts,  (for  example,) 
which  went  in  under  Colonel  Shaw,  came  out, 
shattered  and  reduced  one-half,  under  a  boy 
lieutenant,  with  sergeants  in  command  of  its 
companies.'1' 

The  defence  of  Wagner  was  conducted  with 
courage  fully  equal,  and  with  military  skill  more 
than  equal  to  the  assault.  The  Confederate  loss 
in  killed,  wounded  and  missing,  was  174.  Their 
greatest  losses  were  incurred  in  their  efforts  to 
expel  from  the  south-east  salient  the  Sixth  Con 
necticut,  where  the  Federal  dead  were  "packed 
as  thickly  as  sardines."  Among  their  killed  were 
Lieutenant  Colonel^  J.  C.  Simkins  and  P.  -C. 
emtta*^  and  Captains  W.  H.  Ryan  and  W.  T. 
Tatum,  with  other  officers  of  superior  merit. 

Here,  too,  the  gallant  Major  Ramsay,  law 
yer  and  scholar,  Grand  Master  of  the  South 

*In  Siborne's  History  we  read  that,  at  Waterloo, 
even  brigades  fell  to  the  command  of  lieutenants  ;  a  hun 
dred  officers  (including  ten  generals)  having  been  killed, 
and  five  hundred  wounded,  on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  and 
still  more  on  the  side  of  Napoleon. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.         99 

Carolina  Grand  Lodge  of  Masons,  was  mortally 
wounded — not,  however,  by  the  assailants,  but 
by  an  accidental  shot  from  one  of  the  garrison.* 

When  the  flag  of  Wagner  was  shot  down  dur 
ing  the  long  bombardment,  like  another  Sergeant 
Jasper,  he  lashed  it  to  a  mast  and  returned 
it  to  its  place. 

The  history  of  this  encounter  has  not  yet 
been  written,  by  any  body,  with  satisfactory  ful 
ness  and  accuracy.  Such  of  the  facts  as  have 
been  preserved,  have  been  embroidered  with 
curious  and  absurd  fictions.  Mr.  Greeley,  for 
example,  says,  that,  ''after  advancing  a  few  hun 
dred  yards  under  a  random  fire  from  two  or 
three  great  guns,"  the  Fifty-fourth  halted  for 
half  an  hour,  during  which  it  "was  addressed 
by  General  Strong  and  its  Colonel  !"  The 
innocent  historian  had  evidently  read  and  with 
childlike  simplicity  believed,  the  story  that 
Napoleon  paused  and  harangued  the  Guard 
before  the  final  charge  at  Waterloo.  The  fact 

*He  was  the  first  Master  of  Franklin  Lodge,  Charles 
ton,  in  which  it  was  my  fortune,  on  taking  up  my 
residence  there,  to  be  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  sym 
bolic  masonry.  It  is  remarkable  as  illustrating  the  uni 
versality  of  this  order,  that  in  the  elaborate  preamble  and 
resolutions  passed  by  that  lodge  on  the  occasion  of  his 
death,  there  is  nothing  which  might  not  have  been 
adopted  by  any  Northern  lodge. 


ioo      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

is,  the  Fifty-fourth  did  not  arrive  till  the  brigades 
had  been  formed  for  this  assault.  Hence  it 
happened,  that  it  was  placed  so  strangely,  form 
ed  in  two  lines,  in  advance  of  the  right  of  the 
first  brigade,  which  was  formed  in  line  by  com 
panies,  at  half  distance. 

This  glowing  fiction  probably  arose  from 
this  fact  :  the  step  of  the  Fifty-fourth  on  start 
ing  was  the  "left  oblique,"  and,  naturally  enough, 
these  new  troops  crowded  badly  on  the  centre  ; 
so  that  Shaw  had  to  halt  twice  to  "dress  ranks," 
before  they  took  the  double  quick.* 

The  only  "address"  given  by  Strong,  at 
that  time,  was,  "Forward,  the  Fifty-fourth" — as 
the  only  Waterloo  "speech"  from  Napoleon  to 
the  Guard  was,  "Gentlemen,  the  road  to  Brus- 
sells. "f  No  commander  out  of  Bedlam  ever 
thought  of  halting  troops  under  fire  to  indulge 
in  elephantine  harangues  or  sesquipedalian 
orations. 

The  best  account  of  the  assault  on  Wagner 
is  that  of  "Personne"  in  the  Charleston  Courier, 

*If  I  criticise  Greeley  more  than  others,  it  is  because, 
on  the  whole,  I  like  him  better  than  they.  Lossing  mix 
es  the  later  incidents  of  this  battle  with  the  earlier 
events ;  and  Harper  passes  them  over  in  silence.  Better 
things  may  be  expected  in  the  forthcoming  volumes  of 
the  Count  of  Paris,  touching  the  last  years  of  the  War. 

^Messieurs — Le  chemin  a  JBruxelles. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       101 

which  none  of  the  Northern  historians  seem  to 
have  seen.*  But,  like  every  other  narrative  of 
the  combat  which  I  have  read,  it  is  disfigured  by 
errors.  It  were  well  if  each  surviving  regimen 
tal  commander  made  a  separate  report  to  the 
commander -in -chief,  as  is  the  custom  in  the 
Navy  But  some  of  them,  (like  Colonel  Straw- 
bridge  of  the  Seventy-sixth  Pennsylvania')  would 
have  little  to  report,  that  one  would  care  to  read. 

Admiral  Dahlgren  has  left  us  a  detailed  re 
port  on  the  services  of  the  Federal  fleet  at 
Charleston  from  July  10  to  September  8,  1863, 
which  is  accessible  to  all.f  Whatever  he  has 
there  omitted  will  doubtless  be  supplied  in  his 
memoirs  now  preparing  for  the  press. 

Had  Wagner  been  attacked  on  the  loth, 
or  nth,  with  any  thing  like  the  force  and  reso 
lution  with  which  it  was  assaulted  no  the  i8th, 
it  might  have  been  taken,  and  the  lives  of 
many  hundreds  of  brave  men  saved.  Many 
lives  might  also  have  been  saved,  had  Putnam's 
brigade  been  pushed  in  earlier.  It  was  ready 

*See  Charleston  Courier  of  July  20,  21,  22,  24,  1863. 
"Fersonne  "  was  F.  G.  Fontane,  who,  like  the  Confeder 
ate  General  Whiting,  passed  much  of  his.  early  life  in 
Lowell,  Massachusetts.  Both  were  pupils  of  the  Lowell 
High  School.  Cowley's  History  of  Lowell,  p.  172. 

fSee  Putnam's  Record,  vol.  10,  pp.  183-190.  The  same 
volume  contains  the  reports  of  the  Confederate  command 
ers,  pp.  534-557.  See  also  Gilmore's  Operations  &c. 


102       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

and  waiting  for  the  word  of  command  while 
Strong's  brigade  was  getting  "  pulverized." 
Stevenson's  brigade  should  also  have  been  push 
ed  in  to  support  Putnam.  Greeley,  Lossing, 
and  the  other  historians,  relying  too  much  on 
Gillmore's  account,  omit  to  mention  that  this 
army  was  divided  into  three  (not  two)  brigades, 

>-and;tha.t  in  consequence  of  Strong  and  Sey- 
more  being  Jwrs  du  combat,  and  Gillmore  being 

,too  tar; in  .the  rear,  the  third  brigade  received 
no  order  to  advance  till  it  was  too  late  to 
save  the  battle.  Gillmore  should  have  posted 
himself  at  least  near  enough  to  the  fort  to  know 
when  Strong  and  Seymour  fell,  and  to  push  in 
the  supports  in  time. 

On  Sunday  morning  while  many  of  the 
Federal  dead  and  wounded  were  still  lying  on 
the  beach,  the  Admiral  sent  Flag  Lieutenant 
Preston  and  Sergeon  Duvall,  under  a  flag  of 
truce,  to  the  Confederate  General,  offering  to 
send  his  own  surgeons  to  take  care  of  the  Fed 
eral  wounded.  General  Taliafero  declined  this 
offer.  At  a  later  period,  the  Confederates 
proposed  that  each  government  should  send  its 
own  surgeons  with  medicines,  hospital  stores, 
etc,  to  minister  to  its  soldiers  in  prison,  but  this 
was  refused  by  the  Federals.* 

*See  the  conclusion  of  the  Vindication  of  the  Confed 
eracy  against  the  charge  of  Cruelty  to  Prisoners. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.        103 

Six  days  after  the  battle  Wagner,  the  Fed 
eral  Steamer  Cosmopoliton  met  the  Confeder 
ate  Steamer  Alice,  under  flags  of  truce,  midway 
between  the  fleet  and  the  batteries,  and  ex 
changed  105  prisoners.  While  the  exchange 
was  making,  the  officers  indulged  in  friendly 
conversation,  and  the  Confederates,  through 
their  telescopes,  scrutinized  with  curious  inter 
est  the  grim  Ironsides,  and  her  strange  little 
turtle-backed  consorts,  the  monitors. 

On  the  night  of  August  5th,  a  Federal 
picket  launch,  with  Acting  Master  Haines  and 
twenty  men,  was  attacked  by  the  Confederate 
Steamer  Juno  under  Lieutenant  Porcher,  inside 
of  Cummings  Point.  Ten  of  the  crew  jumped 
overboard,  but  two  of  them,  after  swimming 
two  miles,  became  exhausted,  and  swam  ashore 
on  Morris  Island,  and  surrenderd.  The  others 
continued  swimming  till  they  reached  the  picket 
ships,  and  were  saved.  The  rest  were  captured. 

On  August  21,  General  Gillmore,  having 
mounted  several  heavy  siege  guns  so  as  to  com 
mand  the  city,  summoned  General  Beauregarcl  to 
surrender !  Under  the  circumstances,  Beaure- 
gard  would  have  been  excusable  if  he  had  couch 
ed  his  reply  in  the  prohibited  word  of  the  famous 
Cambronne,  which  Victor  Hugo  has  almost  sanc 
tified  in  Les  Miserables ;  but  he  was  too  polite 


104       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

for  that.  At  first  he  thought  of  treating  it  as 
the  demand  of  the  sock-and-buskin  hero,  Gen 
eral  Bum.  But  upon  the  second  thought  he  de 
termined  to  treat  it  seriously,  and  "  fired  the 
Southern  Heart,"  with  a  letter  denouncing  Gill- 
more  for  not  giving  him  more  time  to  remove 
the  women  and  children  before  shelling  the  city. 
Finally  he  refused  to  move  an  inch,  or  to  send 
away  either  "  chick  or  child." 

On  the  night,  of  August  22,  ,1863,  Sum- 
ter  received  one  of  those  heavy  bombardings 
which  Admiral  Dahlgren  has  included  in  the  re 
port  already  cited.  The  night  was  black  with 
tempest  But  by  this  time,  the  Navy  had  be 
come  familiar  with  the  thunder  of  their  heavy 
guns.  Standing  on  the  turret  of  the  Patapsco, 
as  the  battle  was  about  to  begin,  Captain  Steph 
ens  recited  to  the  officers  around  him,  the  whole 
of  Bayard  Taylor's  "  Crimean  Episode,"  begin 
ning, 

"  Sing  us  a  song,"  the  soldier  cried. 

The  outer  trenches  guarding, 
While  the  heated  guns  of  the  camp  allied 
Grew  weary  of  bombarding. 

So  General  Wolfe  recited  Gray's  Elegy, 
rowing  across  the  St.  Lawrence  to  climb  the 
heights  of  Abraham,  where  he  fought  and  fell 
the  next  morning. 

On  the  night  of  September  3rd,  the  Con 
federate  Major  Warley,  who,  had  been  wounded 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       105 

during  that  day"s  bombardment,  was  captured 
with  eight  men,  by  the  Federal  pickets,  while  on 
his  way  in  a  boat  from  Morris  Island  to  Charles 
ton. 

By  the  sixth  of  September,  Gillmore's  par 
allels  and  batteries  had  approached  so  close  to 
Wagner  as  to  ensure  its  capture  at  the  next  as 
sault.  All  that  day,  a  terrible  bombardment  was 
kept  up,  attended  with  many  casualties  to  the 
Confederates ;  and  General  Terry  was  preparing 
for  an  assault  the  next  morning.  But  during  the 
night  Taliafero  quietly  evacuated  Wagner  and 
Gregg,  and  shipped  his  forces  to  the  city,  leav 
ing  Morris  Island  in  possession  of  the  Federals. 

A  few  nights  before  the  evacuation,  while 
the  Confederate  Steamer  Sumter  was  transport 
ing  troops  from  Morris  Island  to  the  city,  she 
was  mistaken  by  Fort  Moultrie  for  a  Federal 
vessel,  fired  on  and  sunk.  By  this  accident,  five 
men  were  killed,  others  wounded,  and  twenty 
drowned.  The  rest  numbering  about  600  were 
saved  by  barges. 

The  feat  of  Commodore  Perry  in  transfer 
ring  himself  and  his  flag  to 'the  St.  Lawrence 
when  the  Niagara  was  destroyed  during  the  bat 
tle  on  Lake  Erie,  has  been  greatly  applauded.* 

*For  Perry's  peculiar  tactical  methods  and  combina 
tions,  see  Ward's  Naval  Tactics,  pp.  76-80. 


106       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

i 

Captain  T.  H.  Stephens,  of  the  iron-clad  Pa- 
tapsco,  performed  a  similar  feat  during  the  great 
bombardment  of  September  8,  1863.  Commo 
dore  Rowan  of  the  Ironsids,  fearing  that  the 
Patapsco  had  attracted  too  much  of  the  enemy's 
fire,  signalled  to  him  to  "  Drop  down  below.' 
Whereupon,  Captain  Stephens  coolly  pushed  off 
in  his  boat,  pulled  over  to  the  Ironsides,  and 
begged  Rowan  to  let  the  Patapsco  remain  where 
she  was.  "  Wait  a  moment,"  he  said,  "and  see 
how  completely  my  guns  command  Bee."  Com 
modore  Rowan  waited,  and  Lieutenant  Com 
mander  Bunce,  the  Executive  Officer  of  the  Pa 
tapsco,  put  in  a  couple  of  most  perfect  shots — 
seeing  which,  Commodore  Rowan  immediately 
replied,  "  Captain  Stephens,  stay  where  you  are ; 
you  seem  to  have  taken  Battery  Bee  under  your 

exclusive  charge." 

Not  a  word  can  be'said  to  belittle  the  gallant 
feat  of  Perry.  But  I  have  known  Admiral 
Dahlgren  again  and  again  to  move  about  from 
vessel  to  vessel  during  the  bombardments  of 
Charleston  forts,  and  have  myself  accompanied 
him  in  his  barge  on  more  than  one  such  occa 
sion. 

On  the  night  of  September  8,  1863,  a  gal 
lant  attempt  was  made  to  carry  Fort  Sumter  by 
storm.  Major  Stephen  Elliott,  who  had  relieved 


LIFE  A  FL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE,       1 07 

Colonel  Rhett  in  command  of  the  fort  about  the 
time  when  Gillmore  reported  that  he  had  demol 
ished  it,  made  the  following  report  : — 

" Having  for  several  nights  expected  a  boat 
attack,  I  had  one-third  of  the  garrison  under 
arms  on  the  parapet,  and  the  remainder  so 
posted  as  to  reinforce  with  promptness.  At  r 
A.  M.  this  morning  I  saw  a  fleet  of  barges  ap 
proaching  from  the  eastward,  I  ordered  the 
fire  to  be  reserved  until  they  should  arrive 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  fort.  The  enemy  at 
tempted  to  land  on  the  southeastern  and  south 
ern  faces ;  he  wa's  received  by  a  well  directed 
fire  of  musketry,  and  by  hand-grenades,  which 
were  very  effective,  demoralizing  him  ;  fragments 
of  the  epaulment  were  also  thrown  down  upon 
him.  The  crews  near  the  shore  sought  refuge 
in  the  recesses  of  the  foot  of  the  scrap,  those 
further  off  in  flight.  The  repulse  was  decided 
and  the  asault  was  not  renewed 

"His  loss  is  four  men  killed,  two  officers  and 
seventeen  men  wounded,  and  fifteen  officers 
and  ninty-two  men  captured.  We  secured  five 
stand  of  colors  and  five  barges  ;  others  were 
disabled  and  drifted  off.  One  gunboat  and  Fort 
Johnson  and  the  Sullivan's  Island  batteries  en 
filaded  our  faces,  and  contributed  to  prevent  the 
renewal  of  the  assault.  Many  of  the  shots 


io8       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

struck  the  fort.  The  garrison,  consisting  of  the 
Charleston  Battalion,  behaved  admirably ;  all 
praise  is  due  to  Major  Blake,  his  officers  and 
men,  for  the  promptness  and  gallantry  displayed 
in  the  defence.  Not  one  of  my  men  hurt.  One 
of  our  gunboats  assisted  during  the  fight." 

This  gallant  attempt  to  storm  a  "  demol 
ished"  work  has  been  the  subject  of  repeated 
misrepresentation.  Lossing  says,  "  a  portion  of 
the  men  of  the  squadron  attempted  the  import 
ant  enterprise  of  surprising  and  capturing  Fort 
Sumter,  without  Gillmore's  knowledge!'  Greeley 
says,  "  no  notice  was  was  given  to,  and  of  course 
no  cooperation  invited  from,  General  Gillmore.."* 
Admiral  Dahlgren  says,  in  a  narrative  which, 
I  trust,  will  yet  be  published  : — 

"  It  was  arranged  that  the  columns  should 
co-operate — that  of  the  squadron  moving  outside 
of  Cummings'  Point,  and  that  of  the  army  from 
the  inside.  It  was  past  midnight,  on  the  8th 
September,  when  a  fine  naval  column  of  450 
picked  men,  well  officered,  pushed  rapidly  at  the 
gorge  and  South  East  faces,  landed,  and  ran  up 
the  debris  of  the  gorge  wall.  The  enemy  opened 
a  rapid  and  destructive  fire  from  above,  while 
Moultrie  and  Johnson  flanked  with  a  fire  of  shells 
our  boats  and  uncovered  men.  Thus  the  attack 
"Lossing,  vol.  3,  p.  210.  Greeley,  vol.  2,  p.  481. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       109 

on  a  fort  which  Gen.  G.  assumes  he  had  demol 
ished,  necessarily  failed.  So  much  did  I  desire 
the  expected  co-operation  of  the  land  column, 
that  I  went  in  person  to  the  scene  of  action  to 
secure  the  connection,  but  it  came  not.  Gen. 
G.  says  his  troops  were  detained  by  low  tide  un 
til  after  the  naval  attack  had  failed,  which  seems 
far  from  satisfactory  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  near  midnight  when  Lieut.  Preston  returned 
from  Gen.  G.  with  the  assurance  that  the  con 
certed  action  was  understood  and  arranged." 

A  part  of  the  correspondence  in  relation  to 
this  joint  assault  has  been  printed  in  Gillmore's 
book;  the  rest  of  it  will  probably  appear  in  the 
Admiral's  Memoirs,  now  in  preparation  by  his 
devoted  and  accomplished  widow.  The  follow 
ing  dispatch  is  all  I  need  offer  to  vindicate  the 
truth  of  history  against  the  errors  of  Greeley 
and  Lossing  : — 

SEPT.  STH. 
ADMIRAL  DAHLGREN  : 

I  deem  it  of  vital  importance  that  no 
two  distinct  parties  should  approach  Sumter  at  the 
same  time  for  fear  of  accident.  I  will  display  a  red 
light  from  the  fort  when  taken — 1  ask  you  to  do  the 
same  if  your  party  mounts  first.  Our  countersign  is 
"  Detroit."  Let  us  use  it  in  challenging  on  the  water. 
(Signed,)  GEN.  GILLMORE. 


i  io       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

Among  the  officers  here  captured  were  Lieu 
tenant  Commander  E.  P.  Williams,  who  after 
wards  perished  with  the  ill-fated  Oneida  ;  Lieu 
tenants  S.  W.  Preston  and  B.  H.  Porter,  who 
were  killed  at  Fort  Fisher,  the  former  of  whom 
was  attached  to  Admiral  Dahlgren's  staff. 

Our  historians  have  wandered  far  from  the 
facts  in  their  statements  touching  the  commerce 
of  Charleston  pending  our  blockade.  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  "  misinformation"  upon  which 
Mr.  Welles  founded  the  statement  in  his  report 
for  1863  ;  Greeley,  Lossing,  Boynton,  and  oth 
ers,  writing  two  or  three  lustrums  later,  have  no 
excuse  for  saying  that  "as  soon  as  our  iron-clads 
were  within  the  bar,"  July  io,  1863,  "the  harbor 
of  Charleston  was  entirely  stopped. "* 

Mr.  Greeley  is  here  more  deeply  in  error 
than  others  ;  he  attributes  this  result  to  "  the 
terrible  missiles  of  Gillmore."  The  fact  is,  block 
ade  running  was  not  stopped,  and  never  could 
be  wholly  stopped,  without  more  vessels  than 
Dahlgren  ever  had  until  after  the  fall  of  Wil 
mington.  There  are  six  different  channels  to 
Charleston,  of  such  configuration  that  vessels  of 
light  draught,  taking  advantage  of  dark  nights, 
could  elude  the  vigilance  of  the  blockading  fleet. 

*Boynton,  vol.    2,   p.  486;  Lossing,   vol.   3,    p.  210; 
Greeley,  vol.  2,  p.  482. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       1 1 1 

Here  is  an  advertisement  from  the  Charles 
ton  Courier  of  December  17,  1863  : 

BLOCKADE    STOCKS. 

BEE, 
CHICORA, 

COBIA, 

PET. 
For  sale  by  H.  H.  DELEON. 

461,  King-street,  opposite  Citadel  Square. 
The    same    paper   contains   a  much  longer 
advertisement  from  the  Bee  Company,  of  which 
the  editor  says  : — 

"These  gentlemen  have  already  sold  up 
wards  of  $700,000  worth  of  goods,  which  has 
saved  to  the  purchasers  at  least  $150,000  to 
$200,000  on  the  previous  ruling  prices." 

The  following  paragraph  from  the  Charles 
ton  Mercury  of  April  26,  1862,  shows  how  boldly 
the  blockade-run nkig  was  carried  on,  before 
the  establishment  of  the  inside  blockade  by  the 
capture  of  Morris  Island  ;  it  is  a  sample  of  many 
more  : — 

"On  Saturday  last,  nine  sailing  vessels 
among  which  were  the  schooners  Wave  and  the 
Guide,  started  from  this  harbor  to  run  the  block 
ade.  Just  as  they  were  crossing  the  bar  they 
encountered  the  United  States  gunboat  Huron, 
Lieut.  Downes,  and  other  blockading  vessels, 
which  immediately  opened  fire.  The  Wave,  the, 


1 1 2       LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

Guide,  and  two  others  of  the  nine  sailing  vessels, 
were  forced  to  yield.  The  crews  were  detained 
as  prisoners  on  board  the  enemy's  ships  until 
Wednesday  last,  when  those  who  had  been  taken 
aboard  the  Guide  were  landed  on  Gibbes  Island." 

On  November  13,  1863,  the  Mercury  an 
nounced  the  payment  of  handsome  dividends  by 
three  blockade-running  companies,  one  of  them 
.being  $500  per  share. 

During  the  whole  of  Dupont's  command, 
the  Charleston  newspapers  reported  the  arrival 
and  departure  of  vessels  from  that  port  as  reg 
ularly  and  as  openly,  but  of  course  not  as  nu 
merously,  as  before  the  war.  Even  after  Dahl- 
gren  established  his  iron-clad  fleet  inside  the 
bar,  and  posted  his  pickets  every  night  in  the 
throat  of  the  harbor,  between  Sumter  and  Moul- 
trie,  these  arrivals  and  departures  were  from 
time  to  time  announced,  but  more  guardedly, 
except  when  the  blockade-runner  had  been  run 
aground,  or  badly  shelled. 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  berate  the 
commercial  classes  of  Great  Britain  for  export 
ing  goods  to  the  Confederate  States,  in  violation 
of  our  blockade.  But  probably  more  goods  were 
carried  into  the  Confederate  States  through  the 
instrumentality  of  merchants  in  the  United 
States  than  by  all  the  merchants  of  Europe. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       1 1 3 

More  secrecy  was  observed  by  those  residing  in 
New  York,  who  engaged  in  this  business,  than 
was  observed  in  running  the  blockade  of  Mex 
ico  ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  true,  that,  in  the 
Civil  War  as  in  the  Mexican  War,  the  munitions 
of  war  were  furnished  in  very  large  quantites 
to  the  enemies  of  the  United  States  by  citizens 
of  the  United  States.  Good  old  Horace  Gree- 
ley  used  to  say,  not  only  in  his  despondent 
hours,  but  also  in  his  more  hopeful  moods,  that 
the  ideas  and  vital  aims  of  the  South  were 
"  more  generally  cherished  "  in  New  York  than 
in  South  Carolina  or  Louisiana.'"' 

But  I  am  satisfied  that  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  importing  and  exporting  business 
that  was  carried  on  in  violation  of  our  blockade, 
was  carried  on,  not  by  clandestine  merchants  of 
the  North  or  of  Great  Britain,  but  by  the  Con 
federate  Government  itself,  by  the  Bee  Company 
of  Charleston,  and  similar  organizations  at  Wil 
mington,  Mobile,  and  other  ports,  together  with 
the  various  mercantile  firms  of  the  South. 

The  moral  and  religious  sense  of  the  South 
was  not  at  all  offended  by  this  traffic.  The 
Southern  Christian  Advocate  applauded  the  Chi- 
cora  Importing  and  Exporting  Company  of 
Charleston  for  bringing  through  the  blockade, 
*American  Conflict,  vol.  2,  p.  8. 


H4       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

gratis,  twenty  cases  of  Scriptures  for  the  South 
ern  Bible  Societies,  when  the  freight  thereon 
would  have  been  $10,000;  and  also  for  prohibit 
ing  the  importation  of  any  spirituous  liquors  up 
on  their  steamers. 

The  attempt  of  Lieutenant  W.  T.  Glassell 
to  blow  up  the  Ironsides  with  the  torpedo  steam 
er  David,  October  5,  1863,  was  equal  in  audacity 
and  adroitness  to  the  more  successful  attempt  of 
Lieutenant  Commander  Gushing  to  blow  up  the 
Ram  Albemarle.  With  his  little  cigar-shaped 
boat,  he  ran  into  the  centre  of  the  inside  block 
ading  fleet,  in  the  night,  and  steamed  for  the 
Ironsides.  When  hailed  by  the  officer  of  the 
deck,  he  answered,  "  A  boat  from  the  Live  Yan 
kee — I  am  coming  alongside," — at  the  same  time 
shooting  the  hailing  officer,'"'  and  exploding  the 
torpedo  which  projected  from  his  bow.  Fortun 
ately,  the  Ironsides  escaped  serious  injury,  and 
captured  Glassell  and  one  of  his  crew.  The 
David  and  the  rest  of  those  on  board  returned 
in  safety  to  Charleston. 

On  November  4,  1863,  four  of  our  scouts 
effected  a  landing  at  the  southeast  angle  of  Fort 
Sumter.  After  reconnoitering  in  the  darkness 
for  a  few  minutes,  they  were  hailed  by  the  sen 
try,  but  they  escaped. 

*Acting  Ensign  Charles  W.  Howard.     He  was  buried 
on  Morris  Island. 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       r  1 5 

On  the  night  of  November  19,  1863,  Gen 
eral  Gillmore  made  an  attempt  to  surprize  and 
capture  Fort  Sumter.  He  asked  no  aid  from  the 
Navy  ;  but  Admiral  Dahlgren,  hearing  of  it,  and 
anxiously  desiring  its  success,  ordered  his  pick 
ets  to  cover  the  assaulting  party.  His  private 
journal  contains  the  following  entry,  dated  No 
vember  2Oth : — 

"  Last  night  the  Army  undertook  to  feel 
the  force  in  Sumter,  and  sent  200  men  in  boats 
for  the  purpose.  At  30  yards  a  dog  barked  and 
aroused  the  garrison,  which  fired,  wounding  two 
of  our  men.  The  rumor  was,  the  night  before, 
that  an  attack  was  to  be  made,  and  I  ordered  the 
monitors  on  picket  to  cover  our  men.  At  3  in 
the  morning  I  was  aroused  by  a  report  that  a 
musketry  fire  had  opened  from  Sumter.  A  few 
shots  were  fired  by  the  forts,  and  then  there  was 
quiet.  Our  party  concluded  that  there  were  200 
men  in  Sumter." 

The  thoughtful  care  of  the  Admiral  for  the 
Army  column  on  this  occasion  shines  by  contrast 
with  the  failure  of  Gillmore  to  support  the 
Navy  column  on  September  6th. 

On  November  29,  according  to  the  Charles 
ton  newspapers,  (which  had  published  daily  the 
number  of  shot  and  shell  fired  upon  the  city, 
since  August  22,)  the  first  fatal  casualty  occur- 


ii6       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

red  ;  a  negro  being  killed  by  a  Parrott  shell. 
Two  days  later,  a  Mrs.  Hawthorn  was  mortally 
wounded  by  a  fragment  of  shell.  The  use  of  St. 
Michael's  spire  as  a  target  for  the  Federal  artil 
lery,  provoked  a  blast  from  William  Gil  more 
Simms,  which  began  thus  : — 

"Ay,  strike,  with  sacrilegious  aim 

The  temple  of  the  Living  God  ; 
Hurl  iron  bolt,  and  seething  flame, 

Through  aisles  which  holiest  feet  have  trod ; 
Tear  up  the  altar,  spoil  the  tomb, 

And,  raging  with  demoniac  ire. 
Send  down,  in  sudden  crash  of  doom, 

That  grand,  old,  sky-sustaining"spire."* 
On  December  6th,  the  monitor  Weehawken 
suddenly  sunk  at  her  anchorage  off  Morris  Isl 
and.  Both  Greeley  and  Lossing  attribute  this 
disaster  to  her  hatches  being  left  open  when 
a  gale  came  on ;  but  neither  of  them  can  have 
seen  the  testimony  taken  before  the  naval  court 
of  inquiry  convened  on  that  occasion,  or  that 
court's  findings,  though  the  entire  record  was 
printed.  The  Weehawken  had  probably  been 
more  seriously  injured  by  getting  aground,  three 
months  before,  than  was  discovered  at  the  time  ; 
and  her  loss  was  probably  caused  by  the  parting 
of  the  hull  proper  from  the  "  overhang,"  to 
which  the  hull  was  secured  by  rivets.  The  story 
of  the  gale  coming  on  and  filling  her  through 
*  Charleston  Mercury,  December  2,  10,  1863. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       117 

the  hatches,  is  without  foundation.""'  Thirty-one 
of  her  crew  went  down  with  her. 

Another  '  life"  was  lost,  which  "the  dignity 
of  history  "  has  not  deigned  to  notice.  The  crew 
of  the  Weehawken  had  a  pet.  (What  man-of- 
war's  crew  has  not  ?)  It  was  a  noble  chanticleer, 
who  felt  as  much  at  home  on  this  iron-clad  as  in 
his  own  native  barnyard.  He  had  many  "  taking 
ways/'  and  had  done' many  things  that  his  proud 
ship-mates  loved  to  tell  of.  When  the  Atlanta 
was  captured,  and  Captain  Webb  came  aboard  the 
Weehawken  to  give  up  his  sword,  chapman  strut 
ted  to  the  ship's  side,  and  "  took  a  look  "  at  the 
captain ;  he  then  mounted  the  pilot-house,  flap 
ped  his  wings,  and  crowed  lustily  three  times  ; 
giving  "  the  honors  of  war,"  in  behalf  of  the 
United  States,  to  the  distinguished  prisoner. 
When  the  Weehawken  got  aground  one  day, 
near  Fort  Sumter,  and  lay  with  her  hull  badly 
exposed,  shelled  by  the  Confederates,  and  in 
desperate  peril  of  destruction,  chapman  paced 
the  deck  in  pensive  silence  for  four  hours. 
But  as  soon  as  she  had  been  got  off,  without 
loss,  he  mounted  the  pilot-house,  and  poured 
from  his  melodious  breast  a  song  of  thanksgiv 
ing  and  joy,  which  was  reechoed  from  the  walls 
of  Sumter.  Never  did  he  hear  the  crew  "  piped 

*Greeley,  vol.  2,  p.  484 ;  Lossing,  vol.  3,  p.  211. 


ii8       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

to  quarters,"  but  his  voice 

"Rose  like  an  anthem  rich  and  strong," 
to  second  the  call.  After  having  thus  "  braved 
the  battle  and  the  breeze "  during  the  whole 
cruise,  this  noble  fowl  was  "  sucked  down  "  with 
the  Weehawken,  and  perished  miserably  with 
the  ship  of  which  he  was  the  pride  and  boast. 
"  If  he  had  been  killed  in  one  of  them  long  bom 
bardments,"  said  an  "  old  salt,"  who  had  survived 
him,  "  I  shouldn't  have  felt  so  bad.  That's  what 
we  all  expect.  But  to  see  him  fluttering  on  the 
waves  and  going  down  like  a  mere  land-lubber  ; 
it's  too  much  for  me  to  think  of."  Then  lifting 
his  sleeve  to  wipe  the  similitude  of  a  tear  from 
his  starboard  cheek,  he  added,  "  I  tell  you,  Judge 
Cowley,  on  the  word  of  a  man,  I'd  rather  'a'  lost 
half  my  prize  money  than  have  lost  the  cock  of 
the  old  Weehawken." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Heroic  Endurance  of  Charleston — Destruction 
of  the  Housatonic  and  the  Maple  Leaf  by  Torpedoes — 
Capture  of  the  Columbine  and  the  Water  Witch — 
Dahlgren's  Council  of  War — Attempt  to  Surprise 
Fort  Johnson — Bombardment  of  the  Batteries  on  the 
Stono — Battle  of  Honey  Hill — Battle  of  Devaux's 
— General  Sherman  at  Savannah. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       1 19 

The  war  had  lasted  nearly  three  years,  when 
William  Gilmore  Simms  published,  in  Charles 
ton,  his  famous  Ode,  "  Souls  of  Heroes,"  the 
third  stanza  of  which  ran  thus  : — 

"  There  are  thousands  that  loiter,  of  historied  claim, 
Who  boast  of  the  heritage  shrined  in  each  name, — 
Sting  their  souls  to  the  quick,  'till  they  shrink  from  the 

shame, 

Which  dishonors  the  names  and  the  past  of  their  boast ; 
Even  now  they  may  win  the  best  guerdons  of  Fame, 
And  retrieve  the  bright  honors  they've  lost !  " 

No  wonder  that  many  faltered,  for  the  con 
flict  had  involved  terrible  sacrifices  of  life  and 
treasure  ;  and  the  dream  of  Southern  Independ 
ence  was  farther  from  realization  than  when  An 
derson  hauled  down  his  flag  at  Sumter.  But  the 
spirit  of  the  proud  leaders  remained  unbroken. 
Haskell,  Cheves,  Bee,  Simkins,  Ramsay,  Ryan, 
Pringle,  Gary,  Blum,  Frost,  Harleston,  and  many 
more — the  flower  of  the  youth  of  Charleston — 
had  fallen  in  the  bloody  struggle  ;  but  others 
came  forward  with  alacrity  to  carry  on  the  con 
flict.  All  ages  and  both  sexes  suffered.  "  A  fire 
consumed  her  young  men,  and  her  maidens  were 
not  given  in  marriage." 

"  Our  City  by  the  Sea,  as  the  Rebel  City  known," 
had   earned  her  title  to  a  fame  hardly  less  than 
Tyre,   Syracuse,  Jerusalem,  La  Rochelle,  Lon 
donderry,    Saragossa,    or  Genoa,   for   the  lion- 


120       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

hearted  courage  and  resolution  and  the  heroic 
constancy  and  endurance  of  her  people. 

If  some  had  become  reckless  and  desper 
ate,  it  was  no  more  than  happens  in  all  wars. 
No  such  demoralization  prevailed  at  Charleston 
as  was  witnessed  at  Wilmington,  which  (as  Cap 
tain  Wilkinson  observes  )  "  was  infested  with 
rogues  and  desperadoes,  who  made  a  livelihood 
by  robbery  and  murder.  It  was  unsafe  to  ven 
ture  into  the  suburbs  at  night,  and  even  in  day 
light  there  were  frequent  conflicts  in  the  public 
streets,  between  the  crews  of  the  steamers  in 
port  and  the  soldiers  stationed  in  the  town,  in 
which  knives  and  pistols  would  be  freely  used." 

On  February  17,  1864,  Lieutenant  Dixon 
ran  outside  the  Bar  with  the  David,  and  repeat 
ed  upon  the  Housatonic  the  experiment  of  Glas- 
sell  upon  the  Ironsides.  The  David  was  seen 
and  hailed  by  the  watch  officer  of  the  Housa 
tonic,  but  it  was  too  late.  The  David  exploded 
her  torpedo  with  fatal  effect ;  but  both  went  to 
the  bottom  together.  The  boats  of  the  Canan- 
daigua  saved  most  of  the  officers  and  crew  of  the 
Housatonic ;  but  Ensign  E.  C.  Hazeltine,  and 
four  others,  one  of  whom  bore  the  famous  name 
of  Theodore  Parker,  perished.  Lieutenant  Dixon 
and  all  who  were  with  him  shared  the  same  fate. 

Many  a  man-of-war,  and  many  a  merchant 
man,  bears  upon  her  books  names  that  have  been 


LIFE  AFL OAT  AND  ASHORE.       1 2 1 

assumed,  (as  that  of  this  great  "  heretic  "  preach 
er  probably  was,)  to  conceal  the  thie  name,  and 
to  efface  the  memory  of  the  man  who  bore  it. 
How  many  life  tragedies  have  ended  thus  !  I 
have  known  ship-masters,  bankrupt  merchants, 
broken  clerks,  unhappy  husbands,  members  of 
the  bar,  physicians  and  clergymen,  who  had  been 
beaten  on  the  race-course  of  life,  finding  the 
shelter  and  oblivion,  for  which  their  hearts  yearn 
ed,  in  the  Navy,  shipping  as  George  Washington, 
John  Adams,  or  Benjamin  Franklin,  but  more 
often  and  more  humbly,  as  John  Smith,  John 
Jones  or  John  Brown. 

The  Federal  Army  Transport  Steamer 
Maple  Leaf,  was  also  sunk  by  a  torpedo,  April 
ist,  1864,  in  the  St.  John's  River,  Florida.  Nine 
days  later,  another  steamer  of  the  same  sort, 
the  General  Hunter,  was  destroyed,  and  her 
quarter-master  killed,  in  the  same  manner  in  the 
St.  John's. 

If  one  David  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
other  torpedo-boats,  built  cigar-wise,  were  ready 
to  carry  on  the  work  of  destruction.  The 
Steamer  Memphis  was  attacked  by  one  in  the 
North  Edisto,  March  6th,  and  the  Steam  Sloop 
Wabash  by  another,  off  Charleston,  April  i8th; 
but  both  were  beaten  off. 

Other  attempts  were  made  at  various  places 
to  capture  or  destroy  vessels  of  this  squadron. 


t22       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

The  Steamer  Marblehead,  attacked  in  the 
Stono,  off  Legareville,  on  Christmas  Day,  1863, 
made  a  determined  resistance,  which,  with 
the  aid  of  the  Pawnee  and  other  vessels,  was 
successful.  But  the  attack  on  the  little 
Steamer  Columbine  in  the  St.  John's,  May  23^ 
and  that  on  the  Water  Witch,  in  Ossabaw  Sound, 
June  3rd,  were  successful.  Each  of  these 
vessels  was  suddenly  boarded  in  the  night  by  an 
armed  force  too  powerful  to  be  conquered,  and 
became  a  prize  to  the  Confederate  States. 

Hundreds  of  casualties  on  both  sides, 
occurred  from  the  precision  of  aim  of  the  sharp 
shooters.  While  General  Taliaferro  was  in 
command  of  Wagner,  Captain  Waring,  of  his 
staff,  was  shot  dead  by  a  minnie  ball  from  one 
of  our  sharp-shooters,  twelve  hundred  yards 
distant,  while  standing  by  the  side  of  his  chief. 
I  have  myself  seen  a  sentry  shot  dead  on  Cum- 
mings  Point  by  a  minnie  ball  from  Sumter, 
five-eighths  of  a  mile  distant. 

Frequent  as  these  casualties  were,  hardly 
any  one  ever  guarded  against  them.  The  Duke 
of  Wellington,  I  may  say,  regarded  such  acts  as 
murders.  They  never  decide  any  thing. 

General  Samuel  Jones  succeeded  General 
Beauregard  as  Confederate  commander  of  the 
Department  of  the  South.  On  the  Federal  side, 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       123 

General  John  G.  Foster  relieved  General  Gill- 
more.  Admiral  Dahlgren  having  obtained 
leave  of  absence,  Commodore  Rowan  took 
command  of  the  squadron  ad  interim. 

On  resuming  his  command  in  May,  1864, 
the  Admiral  held  a  council  of  his  nine  iron 
clad  captains  touching  the  feasibility  of  another 
naval  attack  on  Charleston.  All  these  officers 
expressed  themselves  ready  and  willing  to  en 
gage  in  another  attack  with  the  greatest  alacrity; 
but  their  judgment  was  against  it.  Only  two 
voted  in  favor  of  an  attack ;  and  these  were 
am'ong  the  youngest  holding  commands, — Lieu 
tenant  Commanders  George  E.  Belknap  and 
Joseph  N.  Miller ;  while  seven  voted  in  the 
negative,  one  of  the  seven  being  Commodore 
Rowan. 

II  this  prudence  did  not  suit  everybody,  it 
was  enough  for  the  Admiral,  that  it  was  approved 
at  the  time  by  the  Navy  Department  and 
afterwards  by  Sherman.  In  a  letter  to  the 
Admiral,  at  the  close  of  the  War,  General 
Sherman  wrote — what  he  has  again  and  again 
said  in  substance  in  my  hearing,  both  before  and 
since — "  I  now  thank  you  in  person  for  not 
having  made  the  hazardous  experiment ;  for 
when  the  time  did  come  to  act  seriously,  your 
fleet  was  perfect,  well  manned  and  admirably 


124       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

suited  to  aid  me  in  the  execution  of  the  plan 
which  did  accomplish  the  fall  of  Charleston,  and 
more  too." 

"  In  war,"  said  Napoleon,  "  it  is  always  and 
everywhere  difficult  to  know  the  truth."  Some 
time  after  this  council  was  held,  a  clamor  was  f 
raised  because  Charleston  had  not  been  taken, 
and  two  members  of  Congress  called  at  the 
Navy  Department  to  urge  that  the  Admiral 
should  be  relieved  by  an  officer  of  a  more  belli 
cose  mind.  The  question  was  put  to  these 
gentlemem  by  Mr.  Fox,  ''Whom  do  you  recom 
mend  for  this  place  ?"  "Well :  Commodore  Row 
an,"  was  the  reply.  ''He  is  a  righting  man  ;  he 
is  there  chafing  on  account  of  the  backward 
ness  of  the  Admiral.  Put  him  in  command,  and 
he  will  go  into  Charleston  right  off."  Fancy  the 
blank  looks  which  these  Congressmen  exchang 
ed  with  one  another,  when  Mr.  Fox  read  to  them 
the  Admiral's  dispatch  inclosing  the  report  of 
this  council  of  war;  by  which  it  appeared  that 
he  had  again  and  again  changed  the  form  of  the 
question  voted  on,  with  the, view  to  get  from  the 
council  a  vote  in  favor  of  an  attack,  while 
Commodore  Rowan  and  the  rest  of  these 
officers  voted  seven  to  two  against  the  propo 
sition  in  every  form.  One  of  the  Congressmen, 
General  Hawley,  who  fought  like  a  Trojan  under 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       125 

Stevens  at  Secessionville,  frankly  owned  his 
mistake,  and  avowed  his  determination  never 
again  to  meddle  with  matters  out  of  his  own 
sphere. 

Let  no  one  draw  from  this  an  inference 
unfavorable  to  the  great  merit  of  the  present 
gallant  and  honored  Vice  Admiral  qf  the  Navy. 
His  record  throughout  the  War,  especially 
while  in  command  of  the  Ironsides,  is  full  of 
proofs  of  his  undaunted  courage  and  extraordi 
nary  professional  skill. 

The  Admiral  afterwards  told  me  that,  if  he 
could  have  got  from  this  council  a  vote  that 
would  justify  an  attack,  he  would  have  made  it, 
whatever  the  result  might  have  been.  I  recalled 
to  his  attention  the  proverb,  that  councils  of  war 
never  fight,  and  Orme's  explanation  of  that 
proverb, — that  "as  the  commander  never  con- 
consults  his  officers  in  this  authentic  form  ex 
cept  when  great  dificulties  are  to  be  surmount 
ed,  the  general  communication  increases  the 
sense  of  risk  and  danger,  which  every  one  brings 
with  him  to  the  consultation."'1" 

I  also  cited  to  the  Admiral  all  the  ex 
amples  I  had  met  with  in  history,  where  bril 
liant  victories  had  been  won,  on  land  and  sea, 
in  battles  which  had  been  fought  contrary  to 

the  advice  of  such  councils. 

* 

*Orme's  History  of  Hindustan,  vol.  2,  p.  171. 


126       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

As  I  expatiated  on  the  battle  of  Plassy, 
which  was  fought  by  General  Clive  after  a 
council  had  voted  13  to  7  against  fighting,  and 
on  which  Great  Britain  founded  her  Indian 
Empire, — the  Admiral  answered  me  : — 

"And  havent  there  been  as  many  examples 
to  the  contrary  ?  There  was  Benham  over 
here  (pointing  across  Morris  Island  towards 
Secessionville.)  He  fought  against  the  advice  of 
his  commanders  ;  and  you  know  the  result.  My 
first  business  is  to  hold  this  coast.  I  am  to  run 
no  risk  of  loosing  this  coast,  for  the  sake  of 
taking  Charleston." 

At  that  time,  the  captains  and  pilots  of 
blockade  runners  received  from  $1,000  to  $5,- 
ooo,  besides  perquisites,  for  a  single  successful 
trip,  occupying  a  week.  Common  seamen  were 
paid  $100  a  month  in  gold,  and  $50  bounty  at 
the  end  of  every  successful  voyage. 

I  had  been  of  counsel,  at  an  early  period 
of  the  War,  for  the  keeper  of  one  of  the 
Charleston  hotels,  and  had  succeeded  in  induc 
ing  Mr.  Welles  to  release  him  from  Fort  Warren, 
where  he  had  been  incarcerated  for  running  the 
blockade.  And  I  should  be  sure  of  a  welcome 
reception  from  him  if  I  went  to  Nassau,  and 
thence  took  passage  in  one  of  those  long,  low, 
narrow,  lead-colored,  short-masted,  rakish-look- 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       127 

ing  blockade  runners  to  Charleston.  I  thought 
that,  with  from  $10,000  to  $25,000  I  could  hire 
pilots,  in  Nassau  or  in  Charleston,  to  pilot  our 
iron-clads  to  the  city,  and  I  offered  to  try  the 
experiment  ;  though  well  aware  that,  in  case  of 
discovery,  I  should  die  the  death  of  a  spy,  like 
Major  Andre  and  Colonel  Hayne. 

If  a  blockade-runner  could  enter  Charles 
ton  with  a  good  pilot,  so  (  it  seemed  to  me  ) 
could  our  iron-clads,  with  one  of  the  same 
pilots;  no  matter  how  many  torpedoes  might  lie 
along  the  channel.  But  the  Admiral  had  to 
look  at  the  question  from  other  points  of  view  ;* 
and  the  attempt  was  not  made. 

According  to  the  report  of  General  Gillmore, 
"it  was  the  constant  and  studied  practice  of  the 
Confederate  commanders  to  circulate  exaggerat 
ed  and  erroneous  reports  concerning  the  means 
of  defence  ; — and  to  such  an  extent  and  with 
such  skill  was  this  ruse  made  use  of,  that  with 
few  exceptions,  neither  the  inhabitants  of  the 
city,  nor  the  troops  defending  it,  possessed  any 
correct  knowledge  of  the  channel  obstructions. 

"Such  a  semblance  of  necessary  and  system 
atic  labor  in  their  construction,  management, 
and  repair,  was  kept  up,  and  such  an  affectation 
of  secrecy  concerning  their  real  character  and 
*Dahlgren's  Maritime  International  Law,  pp.  17,  78. 


123       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

of  confidence  in  their  efficiency  was  assumed, 
in  order  to  keep  all  knowledge  or  suspicion 
of  the  huge  fiction  from  us,  that  the  blockade- 
runners  themselves  knew  almost  nothing  of  the 
really  harmless  character  of  the  hidden  obstruc 
tions  they  were  told  to  avoid." 

And  General  Gillmore  contends  "that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  shape  of  channel  obstructions 
or  torpedoes  that  could  prevent  or  seriously 
retard  the  passage  of  our  fleet  up  to  Charleston 
city  or  above  it,  in  1863  and  1864,  by  using  the 
channel  left  open  for  blockade-runners  ;  that 
such  channel  obstructions  and  torpedoes  as  did 
exist,  were  not  regarded  by  the  enemy  as  at  all 
formidable,  or  likely  to  afford  them  much  protec 
tion  in  the  event  of  an  actual  attack  ;  and  that 
at  no  time  during  the  war  was  their  condition 
any  better,  or  their  efficiency  any  more  to  be 
relied  on,  to  delay  the  passage  of  a  fleet,  than 
when  the  city  came  into  our  possession  in 
February,  1865."* 

But  if  General  Gillmore  supposes  that  it 
was  the  submarine  obstructions  alone  that 
prevented  this  council  from  favoring,  or  the 
Admiral  from  making,  another  attempt  to  cap- 

*  Supplementary  Report  to  Engineer  and  Artillery 
Operations  against  the  Defences  of  Charleston  Harbor, 
pp.  25,  27. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 29 

ture  Charleston  in  1864,  he  is  greatly  mistaken. 
How  serious  the  torpedo  and  other  submarine 
obstructions  were,  sufficiently  appears  in  the 
affidavits  and  reports  appended  to  Mr.  Welles' 
Report  for  1865,  pp.  252-300.  But  these  were  by 
no  means  the  only  obstacles. 

The  officers  who  sat  in  this  naval  council,  as 
well  as  the  Admiral,  saw  that,  while  Gillmore, 
with  the  aid  of  the  Navy,  was  engaged  in  cap 
turing  Morris  Island  and  destroying  the  offen 
sive  power  of  Sumter,  the  genius  and  rescources 
of  Beauregard  and  his  able  lieutenants  created 
other  and  more  powerful  defensive  works  inside 
of  Sumter.  So  that  Ripley  could  justly  boast 
that  his  second  and  third  "  circles  of  fire"  were 
now  more  to  be  relied  on  than  his  first  circle 
at  the  time  of  Dupont's  attack.  Pollard  puts 
it  well  when  he  says,  Beauregard  "  had  re 
placed  Sumter  by  an  interior  position,  had  ob 
tained  time  to  convert  Fort  Johnson  from  a 
forlorn  old  fort  into  a  powerful  earthwork,  and 
had  given  another  illustration  of  that  new 
system  of  defence  practiced  at  Comorn  and 
Sebastopol,  where,  instead  of  there  being  any 
one  key  to  a  plan  of  fortification,  there  was  the 
necessity  of  a  siege  for  every  battery,  in  which 
the  besiegers  were  always  exposed  to  the  fire 
of  others."* 


*Pollard's  Lost  Cause,  p.  437. 


130      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

On  June  I3th,  1864,  General  Ripley,  the 
Confederate  commander  of  the  First  Military 
District  of  the  Department,  sent  a  letter  by  flag 
of  truce  to  General  Schimmelfennig,  the  Federal 
commander  of  the  District,  iniorming  him  that 
five  generals  and  forty-five  field  officers  of  the 
Federal  Army,  prisoners  of  war,  had  been  con 
fined  in  Charleston,  in  a  part  of  the  city  which 
was.  exposed,  day  and  night,  to  the  fire  of  the 
Federal  guns.  A  copy  of  this  letter  was  at  once 
forwarded  to  the  Admiral,  who  denounced  it  as 
"  a  threat  to  murder,"  for  which  Generals  Jones 
and  Ripley  should  be  hanged,  if  they  were 
taken.  But  we  had  as  many  places  where  Con 
federate  shells  fell  as  they  had  where  our 
shells  fell ;  and  it  was  determined  to  retaliate.0 

The  place  finally  selected  by  General  Jones 
for  the  confinement  of  Federal  prisoners  of  war, 
was  the  Charleston  Race  Course.  It  is  strange, 
that  while  the  horrors  of  Andersonville,  Sauls- 
bury,  Libby,  and  Belle  Isle,  have  been  recited, 
more  or  less  at  length,  in  scores  of  narratives, 
the  hardships  of  the  Charleston  Race  Course 
have  been  left  unnoticed  and  unsung. 

Although  the  Federal  Army  and  Navy  at 
once  threatened  to  retaliate,  it  was  brutal  busi- 

*See  the  correspondence  on  that  subject,  in  Welles' 
Report  for  1864,  pp.  351-355.  It  is  of  ten-fold  greater 
interest  than  much  of  the  matter  found  in  the  histories. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 3 1 

ness  ;  and  human  nature  shrank  from  it.  Three 
months  later,  however,  General  Jones  was 
notified  by  flag  of  truce  that  six  hundred  Con 
federate  officers,  prisoners  of  war,  had  been 
confined,  under  the  fire  of  the  Confederate 
shells,  in  a  stockade,  near  Cummings  Point, 
Morris  Island;  that  they  had  been  provided  with 
tents,  and  with  supplies  of  food  approximating 
as  nearly,  as  possible  the  rations  allowed  by  the 
Confederates  to  our  prisoners  ;  and  that  when 
ever  General  Jones  should  remove  the  Federal 
prisoners  from  under  our  fire,  and  should  give 
notice  by  flag  of  truce  of  that  fact,  these  six 
hundred  Confederate  officers  would  be  removed 
from  under  the  Confederate  fire. 

To  the  reproach  of  humanity,  the  Confed 
erates  persisted  in  keeping  hundreds  of  our 
prisoners  upon  the  Race  Course  at  Charleston. 
"  Here,"  wrote  James  Redpath,  "  upon  an  open 
field,  without  shelter  from  burning  sun  or  bleach 
ing  storm,  our  poor  boys  were  turned  out  to 
sicken  and  die.  Their  beds  at  night  were  the 
sods  of  the  earth — their  habitations  only  such 
burrows  as  they  could  excavate  with  their  hands 
in  the  sandy  soil.  Two  hundred  and  fifty-seven 
of  these  unfortunate  heroes  never  left  the  en 
closure  alive,  and  were  buried  upon  the  spot 
where  they  threw  off  their  mortal  armor."  Of 


132       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

course,  the  retaliatory  stockade  on  Morris  Island 
was  maintained  as  long  as  the  Race  Course  out 
rage  was  continued. 

Early  in  the  morning,  on  Sunday,  July  4th, 
1864,  two  regiments  of  infantry,  the  One  Hun 
dred  and  Twenty-seventh  New  York,  and  Fifty- 
second  Pennsylvania,  with  a  detachment  of  sixty 
men  from  the  Third  Rhode  Island  Artillery,  all 
under  the  command  of  Col.  William  Gurney, 
embarked  in  boats  from  Morris  Island,  hoping  to 
effect  a  landing  on  James'  Island,  and  to  surprise 
and  capture  Fort  Johnson  and  Battery  Simkins. 
These  works  are  about  two  miles  nearer  Charles 
ton  than  Cummings  Point.  This  movement 
was  made  in  consequence  of  information  that  the 
Confederate  garrison  then  on  James'  Island,  had 
been  reduced  to  a  skeleton.  It  was  a  bold  move 
ment,  and  promised  brilliant  results.  I  could  not 
resist  the  impulse  to  accompany  the  assaulting 
party  as  a  volunteer,  as  one  or  two  other  naval 
officers  did.  But  the  embarkation  of  the  troops 
was  delayed  two  hours  beyond  the  time  assign 
ed,  and  the  tide  had  gone  down,  so  that  some  of 
the  boats  got  aground,  and  failed  to  reach  James* 
Island.  That  portion  of  the  assaulting  party 
that  reached  the  island  was  even  more  unfortu 
nate.  Colonel  Gurney,  of  the  New  York  regi 
ment,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  command, 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       1 3 3 

remained  on  Morris  Island,  and  in  his  absence 
the  command  devolved  upon  Colonel  Hoyt,  of  the 
Pennsylvania  regiment,  who,  however,  seems  not 
to  have  been  aware  of  the  fact.  He  was  separ 
ated  from  his  command,  and  taken  prisoner. 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Conyingham,  upon  whom 
the  command  now  devolved,  looked  about  for 
Colonel  Hoyt,  and  became  a  prisoner  himself. 
Then  ensued  confusion  baffling  description. 

One  company  of  the  New  York  regiment 
and  the  Rhode  Island  artillery-men  landed  un 
observed  within  fifty  yards  of  Fort  Johnson  ;  they 
were  soon  discovered  by  the  garrison  ;  but  upon 
one  volley  being  fired,  some  officer, (I  could  never 
learn  whom,)  gave  the  order  to  retreat  to  the 
boats,  and  thus  this  opportunity  to  capture  these 
important  works  was  lost.  The  Confederate 
force  then  on  James'  Island  was  small — some  re 
ports  putting  it  as  low  as  1 50.  Our  loss  in  killed, 
wounded  and  captured  must  have  exceeded  the 
whole  number  of  men  in  the  two  forts  assailed; 
for  we  lost  137  enlisted  men  and  six  officers. 

At  the  late  Mr.  Greeley's  request,  I  placed 
in  his  hands  my  notes  of  this  well-conceived  but 
abortive  movement,  to  be  used  in  his  American 
Conflict.  He  seemed  well  pleased  to  get  these 
notes,  but  probably  never  looked  at  them  again. 
No  mention  is  made  of  this  affair  in  his  book, 


134       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

nor  in  any  other  history  of  the  war,*  although, 
as  Admiral  Dahlgren  said,  "  it  came  near  decid 
ing  the  fate  of  Charleston." 

Itis  related  that  once  in  their  agony  for  want 
of  a  good  general,  the  Scots  exclaimed,  "  O  for 
an  hour  of  Dundee:"  With  Gurney  lagging  be 
hind,  with  Hoyt  and  Conyingham  captured,  with 
no  known  commander  to  direct  them  ;  with  bat 
teries  opening  upon  them  from  all  directions, — 
i(  cannon  to  right  of  them,  cannon  to  left  of  them  " 
— in  their  supreme  need  of  a  general,  our  troops 
looked  anxiously  to  the  mound  where  Strong, 
Putnam,  Chatfield  and  Shaw,  had  led  their  forces 
to  the  jaws  of  death  ;  and  then  made  their  way 
back  to  the  place  of  embarkation.  More  fortu 
nate  than  many  others,  I  escaped,  with  only  a 
a  flesh  wound  from  a  shell. 

During  the  week  following  this  attack  on 
Johnson  and  Simkins,  the  monitors  Lehigh 
and  Montauk,  and  the  Pawnee,  McDonough  and 
Racer  were  actively  engaged  in  bombarding  the 

*It  was  reported  in  Mason's  dispatches  to  the  New 
York  Herald  of  July  12,  and  more  fully  in  the  Herald  of 
August  1st,  which  led  to  the  convening  of  a  court  of  in 
quiry  touching  the  conduct  of  Colonel  Gurney.  The 
findings  of  the  court  have  not  been  made  public ;  but 
General  Schimmelfennig,  in  a  conversation  with  me,  con 
firmed  the  strictures  in  the  Herald.  See  letters  and  or 
ders  appended  to  Mr.  Welles'  Keport  for  1865,  pp.  252,  346. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 3  5 

batteries  in  the  Stono.  Admiral  Dahlgren's  dis 
patches  contain  an  account  of  these  operations, 
vyhich  our  historians  pass  by  unmentioned. 
General  Foster  cooperated,  three  of  his  lieu 
tenants  playing  important  parts  —  Generals 
Hatch,  Binney,  and  Schimmelfennig.  The  last 
named  officer  rose  very  high  in  the  esteem  of 
both  Army  and  Navy.  When  the  history  of 
our  Civil  War  is  written  as  it  should  be,  his 
services  will  ensure  his  renown  ;  albeit 


-his  dissonant,  consonant  name 


Almost  rattles  to  fragments  the  trumpet  of  fame." 

Some  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  yet 
to  be  written  in  the  history  of  the  War,  are 
those  relating  the  operations  of  sailors  and 
marines  when  transferred  to  the  shore,  and 
organized  as  naval  land  batteries  and  sailor 
infantry.  Two  such  batteries,  with  four  guns 
each,  were  formed  by  Admiral  Dahlgren  in 
November,  1864  ;  and  they  were  supported  by 
four  half  companies  of  sailor  skirmishers,  and 
four  companies  of  marines.'"' 

Commander  Preble  was  placed  in  command 
of  "  the  Fleet  Brigade,"  as  this  force  was 
called  ;  and  he  has  given  an  account  of  it  in 
the  Preble  Family  Memorial.  Although  it 

*Dahlgren's  Dispatches,  with  Welles'  Report  for 
1865,  pp.  215—220,  346  ;  Treble's  Dispatches,  Ibid, 
308-312. 


136       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

bore  an  important  and  distinguished  part  in  all 
the  engagements  on  the  Tullifinny  and  the  Coo- 
sawhatchie,  this  brigade  4is  scarcely  mentioned 
in  the  histories  of  the  War.  The  object  of 
these  operations  was  to  cut  the  Charleston  and 
Savannah  Railroad,  and  prevent  the  Confed 
erates  from  sending  troops  to  oppose  Sherman 
in  Georgia,  by  employing  them  here. 

This  object  was  largely  accomplished,  but 
not  without  considerable  loss  ;  the  Confederate 
commanders  having  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
country,  while  the  Federal  commanders  knew 
nothing  of  it,  and  again  and  again  mistook  the 
way.  The  most  unfortunate  battle  in  which  the 
Fleet  Brigade  participated,  was  that  of  Honey 
Hill,  November  3Oth. 

Besides  the  Fleet  Brigade,  three  brigades 
of  General  Foster's  army  participated,  com 
manded,  respectively,  by  General  Hatch,  Gen 
eral  Potter,  and  Colonel  A.  S.  Hartwell  of  the 
Fifty-fifth  Massachusetts  Infantry  ;  together  with 
two  batteries  of  the  Third  New  York  Artillery, 
and  two  companies  of  the  Fourth  Massachusetts 
Cavalry. 

The  Thirty -fifth  United  States  Colored 
Troops  led  the  assault,  but  stuck  in  an  impassa 
ble  marsh  which  lay  in  front  of  the  Confederate 
Battery.  There,  a  galling  fire  of  grape  and  can- 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       137 

ister,  as  well  as  musketry,  was  opened  upon 
them,  and  they  were  forced  to  retire. 

Colonel  James  C.  Beecher  (half-brother  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher)  followed;  but  his  regi 
ment,  the  Thirty-second  United  States  Colored 
Troops,  could  not  get  near  enough  to  produce 
much  effect.  So  with  other  regiments:  the  Fifty- 
fourth  and  Fifty-fifth  Massachusetts:  the  Fifty- 
sixth,  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-seventh,  One 
Hundred  and  Forty-fourth,  and  One  Hundred 
and  Fifty-seventh  New  York;  the  Twenty-fifth 
Ohio;  the  Thirty-fourth  and  One  Hundred  and 
Second  United  States  Colored  Troops. 

Although  necessarily  fighting  at  a  disad 
vantage,  with  the  enemy  behind  entrenchments, 
and  themselves  completely  exposed,  the  Federal 
troops  fought  nobly  during  seven  hours.  Previ 
ous  to  the  battle  there  were  three  hours  of  hot 
skirmishing. 

The  Confederate  loss  in  this  battle  was  in 
significant.  The  Federal  killed,  wounded  and 
missing,  numbered  740. 

Among  the  wounded  was  the  Rev.  Colonel 
Beecher,  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  E.  C.  Geary. 

The  best  account  of  the  battle  of.  Honey 
Hill  is  that  of  Samuel  W.  Mason  who  was  pres 
ent,  in  the  New  York  Herald  of  December  Qth, 
1864. 


138       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

Better  success  was  achieved  the  following 
week  at  Deveaux's  Neck.  After  two  engage 
ments  on  December  6th  and  yth,  the  railroad 
was  cut,  and  ten  Confederate  regiments,  which 
otherwise  might  have  made  trouble  for  Sherman, 
were  detained  and  kept  on  the  defensive. 

It  was  the  universal  testimony  of  the  offi 
cers  present,  both  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  that 
the  sailors  and  marines  behaved  admirably  in 
camp  and  battle.  It  was  particularly  remarked 
by  Army  officers,  that  from  the  Fleet  Brigade 
there  were  no  stragglers.  So  far  from  our  tars 
requiring  to  be  forced  to  face  danger  and  death 
in  any  form,  it  was  necessary  to  compel  them,  by 
threats  of  punishment,  to  avoid  exposing  them 
selves  recklessly.  Bayard  Taylor  said  or  sung  : 
"  The  bravest  are  the  tenderest; 
The  loving  are  the  daring." 

I  have  seen  many  illustrations  of  this.  But  I 
have  also  seen  many  examples  to  the  contrary. 
The  insensibility  displayed  by  our  motley  force 
of  whites,  blacks,  mulattoes,  and  octoroons,  on 
the  Tullifinny  and  the  Coosawhatchie,  was  re 
volting.  I  have  again  and  again  heard  our  men 
carelessly  shout,  "  You  are  gone  up,"  to  their 
comrades  falling  mortally  mangled  by  their  side. 
Familiarity  with  the  horrors  of  war  tends  always 
to  make  men  brutes.  For  example  :  after  the 
battle  of  the  Pyramids,  (as  Miot  relates,)  the 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       139 

whole  way  through  the  desert  of  Egypt  was 
tracked  with  the  bones  and  bodies  of  men  and 
horses  that  had  perished  in  those  dreadful  wastes. 
In  order  to  warm  themselves  at  night,  the  French 
•  army  gathered  up  the  dry  bones  and  bodies  of 
the  dead  which  the  vultures  had  spared,  and 
made  fires  with  them.  By  a  fire  composed  of 
this  fuel  Bonaparte  and  his  jaded  Generals  lay 
lay  down  .in  the  desert  of  the  Pharaohs  to  sleep!* 
General  Sherman  burned  the  city  of  At 
lanta  on  November  I5th,  1864;  and  cutting 
loose  from  his  base  in  the  West,  struck  out 
boldly  to  find  a  new  base  in  the  South  Atlantic 
Blockading  Squadron  and  in  the  seaboard  which 
that  Squadron  had  captured  three  years  before, 
and  still  held.  In  saying  this  I  do  no  injustice 
to  the  Army  in  this  Department,  which,  as 
General  Schimmelfennig  said,  "  could  at  no  time 
be  considered  in  any  other  light  than  as  a  landed 
force  serving  to  render  the  blockade  more 
effective." 

It  has  been  argued  that  "  the  Grand 
March/'  was  really  a  retreat ;  that  Sherman  had 
moved  too  far  from  his  base  when  he  advanced 
from  Chattanooga  to  Atlanta ;  and  could  not 
have  escaped  destruction,  had  he  remained 

*See  Miot's  Memoirs  of  the  War  in  Egypt,  and  Rocca's 
Memoirs  of  the  War  in  Spain. 


140       LEAVES  ORFM  A  LAWYERS 

where  he  was.  President  Davis  was  weak 
enough  to  call  it  a  retreat  and  to  predict  for 
Sherman  "  the  fate  that  befell  Napoleon  in  the 
retreat  from  Moscow." 

But  to  my  mind  this  argument  only  enhan 
ces  the  magnitude  of  the  movement.  Has  any 
captain  since  the  days  of  Alexander  ever  con 
ceived  such  a  retreat?  When,  by  any  move 
ment,  a  commander  accomplishes  all  the  sub 
stantial  result  of  a  hundred  victories,  he  has  a 
right  to  call  that  movement  by  the  term  that 
best  pleases  him. 

Sherman  had  not  been  cavorting  over 
Georgia  many  days  before  we  learned  from 
Confederate  deserters  that  he  was  moving  at 
the  rate  of  fifteen  miles  a  day,  probably  towards 
Savannah  or  Port  Royal,  but  possibly  towards 
Pensacola,  or  even  Mobile.  On  the  25th,  we 
learned  that  he  had  reached  Milledgeville, 
and  was  "  smashing  things."  Exactly  where 
Sherman  would  meet  us,  we  knew,  must  be  de 
termined  by  circumstances.  So  the  Admiral 
made  preparations  to  meet  him  at  Savannah 
River,  at  Wassaw  Sound,  at  Ossabaw  Sound,  at 
St.  Catherine's  Sound,  and  also  at  Brunswick. 
Red,  white,  and  blue  rockets  were  sent  up  every 
night  by  our  gun-boats  at  all  these  points,  to 
inform  the  Army  that  the  Navy  was  near.  On 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       141 

December  I2th,*  Captain  Duncan  and  two 
scouts,  after  having  drifted  down  the  Ogee- 
chee  in  a  canoe,  brought  the  Admiral  a  note 
from  General  Howard,  of  Sherman's  right  wing. 
They  left  Howard  on  the  evening  of  the  Qth,  and 
reached  the  Fleet  in  Ossabaw  Sound  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  nth. 

On  the  next  day,  General  Kilpatrick,  Sher 
man's  Chief  of  Cavalry,  communicated  with  the 
Bark  Fernandina,  Acting  Master  Lewis  West, 
one  of  our  squadron,  in  St.  Catherine's  Sound. 

On  Monday  morning,  December  I2th,  I 
was  sitting  as  Judge- Advocate  of  a  Naval  Gen 
eral  Court  Martial  in  the  cabin  of  the  Steamer 
Canandaigua,  Captain  N.  B.  Harrison,  at  Port 
Royal,  trying  Francis  Anderson  for  stealing 
$600  from  Walter  Allen,  Paymaster  of  the 
monitor  Nantucket,  (now  editor  of  the  Boston 
Daily  Advertiser,}  when  the  little  Steamer 
Dandelion  ran  in  at  /ull  speed  with  Captain 
Duncan  and  General  Howard's  dispatch. 

This  gratifying  news  spread  like  wild-fire. 
It  was  wig-wagged  from  ship  to  ship — handker 
chiefs  being  used  where  flag  signals  were  not  at 

*See  the  reports  of  Sherman  and  his  generals  in  Put 
nam's    Rebellion  Record,   vol.  9,  pp.  5,  6,  7,  16,  24,  166 
Also,  the  dispatches   of  Dahlgren  and  his  commanders 
appended  to  Mr.  Welles'  Report  for  1865.  Also  Sherman's 
Memoirs  etc. 


142       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 
command.     While  the    Admiral    was    dictating 

C5 

dispatches  to  Secretary  Welles  at  Washington 
and  to  General  Foster  up  the  Broad  River,  to 
inform  them  of  the  fact,  I  sent  the  glorious 
intelligence  by  the  Steamer  Queen  to  the  New 
York  Herald,  which  must,  of  course,  announce 
the  great  arrival  of  Sherman  "  in  advance  of 
all  other  journals." 

The  excitement,  the  exhileration,  ay,  the 
rapture,  created  by  this  arrival,  will  never  be 
forgotten  by  the  officers  and  crews  of  the  Fed 
eral  vessels  who  then  saw  the  beginning  of  the 
end  of  the  war,  and  of  their  own  wearisome 
service. 

The  Admiral  at  once  started  South  in  the 
Harvest  Moon.  As  soon  as  the  trial  of  Ander 
son  was  finished,  the  flag  of  the  Naval  General 
Court  Martial  was  hauled  down  ;  and  the 
Canandiagua  followed  the  Admiral  to  the  South. 
Fort  McAllister  fell  on  Tuesday ;  and  on  Wed 
nesday,  December  I4th,  General  Sherman  him 
self  came  on  board  the  Harvest  Moon  in  Was- 
saw  Sound,  and  remained  with  us  all  night.  It 
was  arranged  that  Savannah  should  be  attacked 
simultaneously  by  the  Navy  in  front,  and  by 
the  Army  in  the  rear,  and  on  the  next  day  the 
Admiral  carried  the  General  to  Fort  McAllister, 
(which  General  Hazen's  Division  had  captured 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       143 

two  days  before,)  where  General  Sherman  left 
us  to  rejoin  his  Army.0 

Already  the  idol  of  the  Army,  this  brilliant 
officer  became  equally  the  idol  of  the  Navy. 
The  General  and  the  Admiral  at  once  became 
personal  friends  and  faithful  and  indefatigable 
coadjutors,  and  so  continued  to  the  end.  The 
severities  of  the  service  and  the  loss  of  his  son 
had  told  heavily  upon  the  Admiral  ;  but  from 
the  day  when  he  caught  the  light  of  Sherman's 
bright  eyes  as  he  stepped  on  board  the  Flagship 
in  Wassaw  Sound,  he  seemed  to  grow  younger 
and  more  buoyant  every  day.  The  increasing 
elasticity  of  his  mind  is  manifest  in  all  his  dis 
patches.  Writing  on  that  night  to  Secretary 
Welles,  while  the  jaded  General  lay  near  him 
asleep,  the  Adrmral  said, — "I  cannot  express  to 
the  department  my  happiness  in  witnessing  and 
assisting  in  this  glorious  movement,  so  accept 
able  to  our  great  country.  My  only  wish  now 
is  to  do  my  part." 

How  faithfully  he  did  that  part,  the 
General  has  repeatedly  attested  in  words  of  the 
warmest  praise.  The  affection  which  the  Ad- 

tSee  Report  of  Secretary  Welles  for  1874.  The  dis 
patches  printed  with  the  Eeports  of  the  Navy  Depart 
ment  for  1864  and  1865,  contain  full  accounts  of  many 
transactions  not  recorded  elsewhere.  This  mine  has 
been  little  worked  by  the  historians. 


144       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

miral  bore  towards  General  Sherman  was 
warmly  reciprocated.  No  doubt,  no  suspicion, 
ever  started  on  either  side:  their  hearts  were 
as  guileless  as  they  were  brave  ;  and  they  were 
incapable  of  envy  or  jealousy.  Most  fit  it  was 
that,  five  years  later,  when  the  Admiral  died 
suddenly  upon  his  lounge,  in  Washington,  the 
first  that  viewed  his  lifeless  form  (outside  of  his 
own  family)  was  the  illustrious  General  whom 
he  met  on  that  memorable  day  in  Wassaw 
Sound. 

General  Sherman  came  aboard  again  three 
days  later,  and  proceeded  with  us  in  the  Harvest 
Moon  to  Port  Royal,  where  arrangements  were 
made  to  reenforce  the  Army  at  the  head  of  the 
Broad  River  with  Carman's  Brigade,  with  the 
view  to  get  possession  of  the '  Charleston  and 
Savannah  Railroad,  and  prevent  the  escape  of 
General  Hardee  and  the  Confederate  Army  in 
Savannah.  On  the  night  of  December  2Oth, 
General  Sherman  again  came  on  board  the 
Harvest  Moon,  and  proceeded  with  the  Admiral 
first  by  the  Flag-ship,  and  afterwards  (when  she 
grounded)  by  the  Admiral's  barge,  to  Ossabaw 
Sound.  Just  before  reaching  Ossabaw  next 
morning,  the  Army  Steamer  Red  Legs  brought 
a  dispatch  from  Captain  Dayton,  Sherman's 
adjutant,  with  news  that  Hardee  had  evacuated 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       145 

Savannah  the  night  before,  and  retreated  to 
Hardeeville.  The  Confederate  commander  saw 
the  scheme  of  Sherman  to  shut  him  up  in 
Savannah  and  there  capture  him.  So  he 

"  Folded  his  tents  like  the  Arabs, 

And  silently  stole  awajr." 

Early  in  the  following  evening,  the  Admiral 
received  a  note  from  Sherman,  enclosing  tele 
grams  from  Howard,  saying  that  the  Confederate 
Steam  Ram  Savannah,  Commodore  Tatnall, 
lay  out  of  Howard's  reach,  and  adding — 

'"TATNALL  INTENDS  TO  RUN  THE  BLOCK 
ADE  TONIGHT  !  " 

Never  had  Dahlgren  received  a  more  sug 
gestive  message.  Could  it  be,  that  the  Confed 
erate  Navy  had  rallied  its  powers  on  the 
approach  of  death  ?  Would  Tatnall  repeat  with 
the  Savannah  the  experiment  of  Webb  with  the 
Atlanta  ?  If  he  did,  the  Nantucket  and  the 
Passaic  lay  in  his  path,  and  the  fate  of  Webb 
would  probably  be  Tatnall's  too. 

But  war  has  its  accidents.  Might  not  a 
daring  and  experienced  officer,  like  Tatnall, 
possibly  pass  our  fleet  ?  He  might, — though  the 
chances  were  strongly  against  him.  Had  he 
succeeded  in  running  the  blockade  with  the 
Savannah,  he  might  have  turned  South  and 
raised  the  blockade  of  every  port  as  far  as  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  by  ramming  and  sinking  or 


146       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

driving  off  every  one  of  our  blockading  ships. 
What  damage  might  he  not  afterwards  have 
done,  whatever  course  he  had  taken  ?  But 
— never  mind  what  he  might  have  done — he 
attempted  nothing  brilliant  at  all.  He  blew  up 
both  his  iron-clads,  and  fled. 

On  December  2ist,  the  Admiral  trans 
ferred  his  flag  to  the  Steamer  Wissahickon, 
Lieutenant  Commander  Andrew  Johnson,  and 
we  proceeded  up  the  Savannah  River,  accom 
panied  by  the  Steamer  Winona,  Lieutenant 
Commander  Dana,  and  two  tugs.  At  four  o'clock 
we  anchored  at  Elba  Island,  a  short  distance 
below  Savannah;  and  the  channel  obstructions 
making  it  dangerous  to  push  the  vessels  up 
further  we  proceeded  to  the  city  in  the  tugs. 
The  Army  of  Sherman  had  already  entered 
Savannah  from  the  rear.  The  General  himself 
followed  the  next  clay,  and  established  his  head 
quarters  in  the  stately  mansion  of  Charles 
Green  on  Macon  street,  opposite  St.  John's 
Episcopal  Church. 

None  of  us  will  ever  forget  the  delight  with 
which  we  viewed  the  commercial  emporium  of 
Georgia,  sitting  like  a  fair  crowned  queen  upon 
a  high  bluff,  where  the  proud,  lordly  river  bends 
with  a  graceful  curve,  and  folds  (as  it  were)  his 
great  arm  lovingly  around  her.  The  poets,  both 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 47 

great  and   small,   of  our  squadron,   poured  out 

copious   effusions   on   this  occasion,  which  were 

printed  by  the  flag-ship  press  and  in  the  papers 

of  the  city.     One  of  these,  perhaps,  might  be 

spared  by  an  indulgent  critic.    It  began  thus  :• — 

"  My  heart  with  rapture  greets  thee, 

Savannah,  O,  Savannah." 

Hardee's  rear  guard  had  not  reached  the 
left  bank  of  the  river  before  General  Leggatt/s 
Division  entered  the  city.  A  bright  little  Jewess 
living  on  one  of  the  great  squares  of  the  city, 
said  to  me  a  few  days  later, — "When  we  retired, 
the  tent  lights  of  our  soldiers  glimmered  in  the 
square,  the  same  as  usual.  The  following  morn 
ing  those  tents  were  gone,  and  others  pitched  in 
their  stead,  occupied  by  blue-coated  Yankees.'* 
Not  wishing  to  give  offence  to  the  dark-eyed 
daughter  of  Abraham,  I  spoke  of  the  city  as 
"  occupied "  merely  by  us.  In  an  unguarded 
moment  I  used  the  word  "  captured."  It  had 
barely  passed  my  lips,  when  she  replied  with  in 
dignant  emphasis,  "  Our  city  has  not  been  cap 
tured,  Sir.  Your  General  Sherman  only  came 
here  to  save  himself  from  being  captured  by 
General  Hood.  Our  army  was  short  of  stores, 
and  General  Hardee,  who  is  a  personal  friend  of 
mine,  has  merely  gone  away  for  supplies.  He 
will  return  very  soon,  and  if  your  army  don't  get 


143       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

aboard  your  gunboats  and  leave  this  city,  Gen 
eral  Hardee  will  take  them  prisoners  every  one." 

The  city  was  barren  of  provisions,  alike  for 
man  and  beast.  Sherman's  foragers  and  his 
"bummers,"  who  were  excellent  judges  of  horses, 
had  picked  up  some  thousands  of  them  on  their 
march.  Many  of  these  perished  for  want  of  food 
in  Savannah;  many  others  were  killed  to  save 
their  board.  For  a  time,  there  was  danger  of 
famine.  But  this  peril  soon  passed  ;  the  weather 
was  delightful ;  the  scenery  was  beautiful  ;  rapid 
communication  was  opened  with  the  North,  and 
all  were  happy.  The  order  that  prevailed  was 
remarkable.  Savannah  was  as  quiet  as  it  ever 
was.  No  scenes  of  drunkenness,  debauchery 
and  ruffianism,  such  as  soon  afterward  disgraced 
Wilmington,  were  witnessed  there. 

The  intercourse  of  the  officers  of  the  Navy 
with  the  officers  of  the  Army  while  at  Savannah 
was  most  cordial  and  joyous. 

Upon  getting  acquainted  with  Sherman's 
commanders,  I  formed  a  high  opinion  of  almost 
every  one  of  them.  Their  confidence  in  each 
other  and  in  their  chief  was  great,  and  it  was 
well  placed.  Great  as  is.  Sherman's  military  re 
nown  now,  I  cannot  but  think  that  it  will  shine 
with  a  richer  lustre  hereafter. 

Though  no  Puritan,  he  has  some  of  the  traits 
of  Oliver  Cromwell.  Historians  say  that  Crom- 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       149 

well  "  was  accustomed  to  unbend  among  his  offi 
cers  in  a  manner  that  none  but  a  man  with  a 
kind  heart  and  a  good  conscience  could  do  ;'' — a 
remark  which  I  often  recalled  on  seeing  Sher 
man's  easy  familiarity  with  the  officers  of  the 
Navy  as  well  as  those  of  the  Army.  His  hearty 
appreciation  ot  the  alacrity  with  which  the  Ad 
miral  and  all  the  officers  of  the  fleet  responded 
to  all  his  desires,  was  often  expressed.  Calling 
at  his  head-quarters  in  Savannah,  one  morning, 
while  he  was  planning  his  march  through  the 
Carolinas,  I  collected  and  took  with  me  some  of 
the  best  maps  that  we  had  aboard  the  flag-ship, 
of  the  region  he  was  to  traverse.  "  Just  the  very 
thing  I  wanted,"  he  exclaimed,  with  exhuberant 
joy.  When  I  told  him  the  Harvest  Moon  and 
the  Pontiac  had  been  placed  at  his  service  to 
transport  his  right  wing  to  Beaufort,  he  exclaim 
ed,  -'Why,  your  Admiral  anticipates  all  my 
wishes." 

That  he  is  capable  of  unbounded  wrath, 
Secretary  Stanton,  General  Halleck,  and  many 
others,  learned  to  their  sorrow.  But  I  never, 
except  once,  saw  him  exhibit  any  but  the  noblest 
and  pleasantest,  ay,  the  sweetest,  traits.  Even 
his  most  serious  hours  were  irradiated  with 
flashes  of  gaiety  that  recalled  the  traditional 
elan  of  Napoleon. 


150       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

The  time,  the  only  time,  when  I  saw  him 
displeased,  was  when  he  received  news  of  the 
manner  in  which  Butler  "  craw-fished  off,"  (as 
Sherman  expressed  it,)  after  landing  at  Fort 
Fisher.  In  consequence  of  the  failure  of  Butler 
on  that  occasion,  it  was  doubtful,  for  some  days, 
whether  Sherman's  army 'would  not  be  ordered 
to  proceed  to  North  Carolina  by  sea,  and  thus 
be  prevented  from  cutting  their  expected  swath 
through  South  Carolina. 

One  reads  with  surprise  the  remark  of  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Boynton,  that,  although  "  much  impor 
tant  service  was  performed "  by  the  Navy, 
about  this  time,  "  particularly  at  Charleston  and 
Savannah,"  yet  the  limits  of  his  work  do  not 
allow  "  more  particular  mention  "  of  that  service. 
One  wonders  why  it  is  that  "  the  assistance  which 
the  Navy  rendered  the  ajrmy  of  Sherman,  after 
it  reached  the  sea,  cannot  be  adequately  pre 
sented  in  "The  History  of  the  Navy  during  the 
Rebellion."  Where  else  should  one  look  for  it — 
especially  when  all  the  compilers  of  more  gen 
eral  narratives  pass  it  over  almost  in  silence  ? 

The  bombarding  of  Charleston  and  its  de 
fences  continued  intermittently,  month  after 
month,  each  day's  operations  being  a  repetition 
of  the  last.  I  here  give  the  record  of  one  day, 
as  a  sample  of  hundreds  : — 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 5 1 

On  January  29th,  1864,  156  shots  were 
fired  at  the  south  angle  of  Fort  Sumter,  -139  of 
which  struck.  The  bombardment  began  at  day 
light  and  ceased  at  dark.  One  hour's  work 
repaired  the  damage  which  the  fort  sustained 
during  the  day.  In  the  afternoon  the  flagstaff 
was  shot  away  ;  and  the  following  account  of  the 
replacing  of  it  is  from  a  journal  kept  by  a 
Confederate  officer  in  the  fort : — "it  was  first 
replaced  upon  a  small,  and  afterwards  upon  a 
larger  staff  by  Private  F.  Shafer,  Co.  'A,'  Lucas 
Batallion,  who  stood  on  the  top  of  the  traverse, 
and  repeatedly  waved  the  flag  in  sight  of  the 
enemy.  He  was  assisted  by  Corporal  Brassin- 
ham  and  Private  Charles  Banks  of  the  same 
corps,  and  by  Mr.  H.  B.  Middleton  of  the  Signal 
Corps,  who  was  acting  as  adjutant  of  the  post  in 
the"  absence  of  the  regular  officer.  They  were 
exposed  to  a  rapid  and  accurate  fire  of  shells. 
At  the  close  of  the  scene,  Shafer,  springing  from 
the  cloud  of  smoke  and  dust  of  a  bursting  shell, 
stood  long  waving  his  hat  in  triumph.  It  was 
a  most  gallant  deed,  and  the  effect  upon  the 
garrison  was  most  inspiring/' 

The  Christmas  holidays  brought  to  the 
Admiral  at  Savannah,  information  from  Captain 
Scott,  senior  naval  officer  off  Charleston,  that 
Commodore  Tucker,  the  commander  of  the  Con- 


152       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

federate  naval  forces  in  Charleston,  meditated  a 
raid  on  'the  blockading  fleet  with  his  three  Iron 
clads,  Chicora,  Palmetto  State,  and  City  of 
Charleston,  assisted  by  several  torpedo  boats 
like  the  David.  It  certainly  would  have  been 
creditable  to  Tucker  to  have  made  one  more 
effort  to  enhance  the  fame  of  the  Confederate 
Navy.  If  he  had  not  destroyed  or  beaten  off 
the  blockading  fleet,  he  could,  perhaps,  have 
run  the  blockade,  stood  out  to  sea,  and  fought 
a  gallant  fight  with  such  wooden  steamers  as 
pursued  him.  But  while  he  meditated,  the 
Admiral  reenforced  the  fleet  off  Charleston;  and 
by  New  Year's  Day,  no  less  than  seven  of  the 
turtle-backs  lay  ready  to  give  Tucker  a  warm 
reception.  The  result  was,  no  raid  was  at 
tempted. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Fort  Fisher — Death  of  Preston  and  Porter — 
Loss  of  the  Patapsco  by  a  Torpedo — Bon  Mot  of 
Farragut — Destruction  of  the  Dai  Ching — Occupa 
tion  of  Charleston  and  Georgetown — Captain  Belk- 
nap's  Memorandum — Charleston  Prizes — The  last 
of  the  Blockade-Runners. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  A  ND  A  SHORE.       1 5  3 

While  General  Sherman  remained  at  Sav 
annah,  and  the  Admiral's  flag-ship  lay  in  the 
river  below,  I  had  my  last  opportunity  to  meet 
Lieutenant  Preston,  formerly  of  Dahlgren's 
staff,  who,  after  being  captured  at  Sumter  and 
subsequently  exchanged,  had  been  attached  to 
the  staff  of  Admiral  Porter.  I  made  a  visit  to 
the  fleet  off  Wilmington,  running  up  the  coast  in 
the  prize  Julia.  The.  weather  was  extremely 
bad,  and  we  encountered  a  gale  which  would 
probably  have  been  fatal  to  our  rickety  craft, 
had  it  not  been  "on  our  quarter,"  or  behind  us. 

The  Julia  lay  low  in  the  water  ;  and  with  her 
convex  deck  which  covered  her  half-way  from 
her  stem  to  her  waist,  she  cut  through  the 
waves  instead  of  leaping  over  them.  The 
strain  on  her  was  fearful.  She  shivered  in 
every  part,  and  could  not  have  shaken  worse  if 
she  had  had  a  violent  attack  of  St.  Vitus' 
Dance.  I  was  never  more  impressed  with  the 
awe,  the  power,  and  the  mystery  of  the  Sea, 
than  when  tossed  about  in  this  fragile  ship, 
which  seemed  ready  at  any  instant  to  break  in 
two  or  in  three  and  leave  us  to  the  mercy  of  the 
pitiless  storm.  Still,  perhaps,  it  is  this  awe,  this 
power,  this  mystery,  which  lends  to  the  Sea  its 
most  powerful  attraction.  Somebody  says — 

Strip  this  old  world  of  all  its  mystery,  discover  its 
last  and  uttermost  secret,  and  I  am  sure  I'  should 


154       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

find  it  a  stupid  and  dreary  place  to  live  in.  1  believe 
in  God,  not  because  I  know  him,  but  because  I  do  not 
know  him  ;  because  he  is  mysterious,  the  profound, 
the  infinite  ;  because  he  is  ever  and  forever  Unknown. 
If  my  thought  once  could  capture  him  and  make  him 
its  prisoner,  it  would  immediately  tire  of  him  and 
seek  for  a  greater.  Any  thing  that  we  can  draw  a 
circle  around  straightway  becomes  no  longer  a  goal, 
but  a  point  of  departure.  Hence,  then  as  I  stand 
before  Old  Ocean,  I  hail  it  as  a  type  of  the  infinite. 
My  soul  revels  in  its  vastness.  Thankful  for  all  it 
reveals,  I  am  still  more  thankful  for  all  that  it  only 
suggests.  Here  I  have  that  sense  of  inward  expan 
sion,  of  soul-quickning,  of  slow  up-climbing  and  out- 
reaching  of  thought,  which  is  always  the  effect  of 
standing  in  the  presence  of  any  great,  grand,  inspir 
ing  object  in  Nature  or  in  art.  No  wonder  sailors 
are  superstitious.  The  sea  is  more  than  they  can 
understand,  familiar  as  they  are  with  it.  It  speaks  to 
them  in  an  awful  voice  ;  it  deals  with  them  in  most 
impressive  ways.  It  is  at  once  their  cradle  and  their 
grave. 

At  length,  the  storm  ceased,  and  before  we 
reached  Porter's  flag -ship  there  was  a  great 
calm.  My  recollections  of  that  visit  are  most 
pleasant ;  though  saddened  by  the  reflection  that 
I  shall  never  again  see,  on  this  earth,  my  gallant 
friend,  Preston,  nor  his  gallant  shipmate,  Porter, 
who  was  his  comrade  in  the  attack  on  Sumter, 
his  comrade  in  the  Confederate  prison,  his  com- 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       \  5  5 

rade  in  the  fleet  under  Admiral  Porter,  and 
finally  his  comrade  in  death  at  Fort  Fisher.  As 
I  was  about  to  proceed  to  Fortress  Munroe, 
Preston  said,  "  Call  and  see  us  on  your  way 
back.  We'll  take  a  walk  through  the  city  to 
gether."  I  replied,  "  I  hope  we  shall,  but  you  are 
going  on  another  forlorn  hope,  (alluding  to  the 
assault  on  Sumter,  and  the  expedition  with  the 
powder-boat,  as  well  as  to  the  part  which  he  was 
soon  to  take  in  the  second  assault  on  Fort 
Fisher ;)  and  God  alone  knows  how  it  will  end." 
•'Well,  it's  a  fact,"  he  said,  "  that  both  of  us  have 
had  poor  luck  in  volunteering  to  do  more  than 
our  own  particular  duty.  You  had  ypur  leg 
smashed,  and  I  had  to  rust  in  a  rebel  prison. 
This  thing  that  we  are  going  into  at  our  next 
attack,  is  really  soldiers'  business,  and  not  just  the 
thing  for  sailors  ;  but  I  hope  we  shall  come  out 
all  right.  One  thing  I  can  tell  you  :  we  shall 
take  Fort  Fisher  next  time,  whatever  may  be 
come  of  me.  For  myself,  I  feel  a  good  deal  like 
Byron  when  he  said, 

'  Here's  a  sigh  for  those  who  love  me, 
And  a  smile  for  those  who  hate ; 

And  whatever  fate's  above  me, 
Here's  a  heart  for  any  fate.'  " 

"That's  well  put,  Preston,"  I  rejoined;  "but 
there  is  another  verse  of  Byron's — the  last  he 
ever  wrote — which  comes  to  my  mind  just  now  : 


156       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

1  Seek  out— less  often  sought  than  found — 

A  soldier's  grave,  for  thee  the  best ; 
Then  look  around,  and  choose  thy  ground, 

And  take  thy  rest.' " 

Here  Lieutenant  Porter  joined  us.  Mutual  good 
wishes  were  exchanged,  and  we  parted — never 
to  meet  again  this  side  immortality.  On  the  fif 
teenth  of  that  month,  (January,  1865,)  Preston 
and  Porter  led  a  column  of  fourteen  hundred 
sailors  and  marines  in  an  assault  on  the  sea-face 
of  Fort  Fisher — a  work  calling  for  a  column  of 
from  six  to  ten  thousand  men  ; — Fort  Fisher  fell, 
but  both  these  brave  officers  fell  with  it. 

Preston  possessed  the  elements  of  a  great 
commander.  He  was  loved  and  admired  by  all 
who  knew  him.*  I  shall  not  forget  the  cheerful 
tones  of  his  invitation :  "  We'll  take  a  walk 
through  the  city  together."  They  rang  in  my 
ears  when,  a  few  months  later,  I  did  "  take  a 
walk  through  the  city  "  of  Wilmington.  Though 
alone,  I  felt  that  I  was  not  alone ;  and  if  the 
souls  of  heroes,  ascended  to  glory,  ever  return 
to  the  scenes  of  their  earthly  life,  then  I  know 
that  Preston  was  indeed  present  with  me  ;  and 

*One  of  his  admirers  wrote  an  appreciative  ode  on 
him  in  the  Army  and  Navy  Journal,  beginning, 

"  Fallen  at  a  stroke,  and  in  an  hour  forgot ! 
O,  brave  young  spirit,  can  this  be  the  lot 
Of  all  that  great  ambition  that  would  soar 
Above  all  heights  that  men  had  reached  before?" 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       1 5  7 

the  interest  that  I  felt  in  that  city  was  doubled 
by  the  thought  that  it  was  for  this  that  Preston 
had  died. 

In  anticipation  of  another  naval  attack  on 
Charleston,  the  Confederate  Torpedo  Corps 
laid  many  new  torpedoes  along  the  channel  by 
which  our  vessels  must  pass,  if  they  attempted 
to  reach  the  city.  On  the  night  of  January  I5th, 
the  monitor  Patapsco  passed  over  one  of  these 
newly  laid  torpedoes,  which  exploded  under  her, 
sending  her  to  the  bottom  with  eight  officers 
and  fifty-four  men.  One  old  boatswain  who  sur 
vived  the  loss  of  this  vessel,  grimly  remarked,  as 
he  came  on  board  the  flag-ship,  with  his  clothes 
dripping  wet,  "  We  were  told  to  dredge  for 
torpedoes,  and  nobody  need  cry  because  we 
found  one."  A  remark  not  unworthy  to  be  brack- 
etted  with  the  following  bon  mot  of  Admiral 
Farragut.  When  he  was  %  fighting  his  great 
battle  below  New  Orleans,  one  of  the  best  of 
his  ships,  the,  Mississippi,  was  badly  rammed 
by  the  Confederate  Ram  Manassas.  The 
smashing  which  she  received  was  fearful:  but 
Farragut  merely  remarked,  You  cant  make  ome 
lettes  without  breaking  eggs! 

On  January  26th,  the  steamer  Dai  Ching  got 
aground  in  the  Combahee,  exposed  to  the  fire  of 
a  Confederate  battery.  She  was  courageously 


158       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

defended  by  Lieutenant  Commander  J.  C.  Chap 
lin  and  all  his  officers  and  men  for  seven  hours, 
during  which  she  was  struck  upwards  of  thirty 
times,  and  her  decks  shot  through  in  seven 
places;  she  was  destroyed.  Acting  Ensign  Frank 
lin  S.  Leach,  commanding  the  tug  Clover,  having 
disobeyed  positive  orders  of  his  superior  officers, 
and  deserted  his  duty  during  the  combat  in  which 
the  Dai  Ching  was  lost,  was  at  once  relieved  of 
his  command,  placed  under  arrest,  and  turned 
over  to  me  for  trial  by  a  Naval  General  Court 
Martial.  The  case  was  clear  and  the  offence 
grave.  But  President  Lincoln  had  often  ex 
pressed  his  unwillingness  to  approve  a  sentence 
of  death  for  offences  committed  in  the  Navy ; 
and  the  conduct  of  the  accused  had  previously 
been  good.  The  sentence  of  Leach  was  dismis 
sion  from  the  service  and  five  years'  confinement 
at  hard  labor  in  the  penitentiary  ;  and  it  was 
approved  by  Secretary  Welles.  A  part  of  it  was 
afterwards  remitted  by  President  Johnson. 

After  the  occupation  of  Fort  Fisher  and 
Wilmington,  Charleston  alone  remained  accessi 
ble  to  blockade-runners ;  and  although  a  portion 
of  Porter's  fleet  was  transferred  to  Dahlgren, 
and  the  blockade  made  tighter  than  ever,  the 
necessities  of  the  Confederate  Army  prompted 
those  engaged  in  this  business  to  run  the  most 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       1 59 

desperate  risks  ;  and,  for  a  time,  Maffit,  Wilkin 
son,  and  others  of  the  most  noted  blockade  run 
ners,  turned  their  eyes  towards  Charleston. 

On  February  ist,  Captain  Maffit  in  the  Owl, 
Captain  Wilkinson  in  the  Cameleon,  (formerly 
the  noted  Tallahasse,)  together  with  the  Chicora, 
the  Carolina,  and  the  Dream,  left  Nassau  with 
supplies  for  the  army  of  General  Lee.  "The  proud 
army  which,  dating  its  victories  from  Bull  Run, 
had  driven  McClellan  from  before  Richmond, 
and  withstood  his  best  effort  at  Antietam,  and 
shattered  Burnside's  host  at  Fredericksburg,  and 
worsted  Hooker  at  Chancellorsville,  and  fought 
Meade  so  stoutly,  though  unsuccessfully,  before 
Gettysburg,  and  haffled  Grant's  bounteous  re 
sources  and  desperate  efforts  in  the  Wilderness, 
at  Spottsylvania,  on  the  North  Anna,  at  Cold 
Harbor,  and  before  Petersburg  and  Richmond," 
was  actually  in  peril  of  famine,'""  and  well  de 
served  these  efforts  for  its  relief. 

The  Stag  and  Charlotte  were  captured  ;  the 
Owl  had  a  shot  through  her  bows,  and  went 
back ;  the  Chicora  got  in  and  out  again,  and  re 
turned  to  Nassau  on  February  23,  with  news  of 
the  evacuation  of  Charleston.  "  As  we  turned 

*American  Conflict,  vol.  2,  p.  745.  Here  it  is  that  the 
generous  Greeley,  laying  down  pen  and  spectacles,  and 
waving  aloft  his  historic  white  hat,  wafts  to  the  Confed 
erate  Army  a  proud  and  tender  farewell. 


160      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

away  from  the  land,"  says  Wilkinson,  with  a 
touch  of  real  pathos,  "our  hearts  sank  within 
us,  while  the  conviction  forced  itself  upon  us, 
that  the  cause  for  which  so  much  blood  had  been 
shed,  so  many  miseries  bravely  endured,  so. many 
sacrifices  cheerfully  made,  was  about  to  perish 
at  last." 

General  Sherman  moved  like  a  thirty-day 
clock.  His  march  through  Georgia  occupied  a 
month;  he  staid  at  Savannah  a  month;  he  ca 
vorted  through  the  Carolinas  in  a  month.  The 
incidents  of  his  advance  through  the  Carolinas, 
far  more  important  than  his  march  through 
Georgia,  have  been  recorded  in  a  terse  and 
graphic  style  in  Sherman's  own  Memoirs,  and 
need  not  be  repeated  here. 

By  February  /th,  Sherman  had  reached 
Lowry's,  and  he  wrote  to  Dahlgren  in  cypher  : 
"Watch  Charleston  close.  I  think  Jeff.  Davis 
will  order  it  to  be  abandoned,  lest  he  lose  its 
garrison  as  well  as  guns." 

Beauregard,  who  had,  for  the  third  time, 
been  placed  in  command  of  this  Department, 
viewed  the  situation  as  Sherman  did.  Hardee, 
who  had  succeeded  Ripley  in  command  of  the 
Charleston  District,  concurred  with  Beauregard. 
But  Davis  took  a  different  view,  and  was  incens 
ed  at  Beauregard  and  Hardee  for  evacuating 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       161 

Charleston.  General  Sherman  gave  the  Con 
federate  President  credit  for  more  military  sa 
gacity  than  he  really  possessed. 

General  Foster  had  suffered  so  much  from 
an  old  wound,  that  he  became  unfit  for  active 
service,  and  on  February  Qth,  he  was  relieved  by 
General  Gillmore.  The  manner  in  which  Gill- 
more  writes,  in  his  supplement,  of  the  move 
ments  made  by  the  army  in  his  Department,  as 
well  as  by  Admiral  Dahlgren's  fleet,  in  coopera 
tion  with  Sherman,  is  misleading.  None  of  these 
movements  were  serious.  They  were  all  feints. 
The  advance  of  Hatch's  brigade  towards  Charles 
ton  along  the  line  of  the  Charleston  and  Savan 
nah  Railroad  ;  the  advance  of  Potter's  brigade, 
and  of  Captain  Stanley's  fleet  up  Bull's  Bay  ; 
the  advance  of  the  Ottowa  and  Winona  on  the 
Combahee  ;  the  operations  of  the  Pawnee  and 
Sonoma  on  the  Togadoo  and  Wadmelaw ;  the 
bombarding  of  the  batteries  on  the  Stono  by  the 
Lehigh,  Wissahickon,  McDonough,  Smith  and 
Williams  ;  in  a  word,  all  that  was  clone  in  aid  of 
Sherman,  was  done,  as  Sherman  expressed  it, 
"just  to  make  the  enemy  uneasy  on  that  flank," 
and  prevent  the  concentration  of  his  forces 
against  Sherman's  army. 

Some  of  the  incidents  of  the  day  when 
Charleston  was  "  repossessed,"  have  been  relat- 


1 62       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

ed  by  Greeley  and  by  Lossing,*  but  none  of  the 
historians  of  the  War  relate  the  movements  of 
our  fleet  on  that  day.  Captain  George  E.  Belk- 
nap,  who  commanded  the  advance  picket  mon 
itor,  Canonicus,  on  the  night  of  February  i/th, 
furnished  me  the  following  : — 

"  U.  S.  S.  CANONICUS,  PORT  ROYAL,  S.  C. 
Memorandum  for  Judge  Cowley  concerning  the 

Evacuation  of  Charleston. 
On  the  night  of  February  i/th,  1865,  the 
monitor  Canonicus  had  the  advance  picket  duty, 
supported  by  the  monitor  Mahopac  and  several 
tugs  and  picket  boats.  The  wind  was  fresh  from 
the  N.  W.  Throughout  the  entire  night  the  army 
and  naval  batteries  on  Morris  Island  kept  up  a 
heavy  fire  on  the  rebel  batteries  on  Sullivan's 
Island,  to  which  the  rebels  replied  by  an  occa 
sional  gun  from  Moultrie  during  the  first  watch. 
Heavy  explosions  were  heard  in  the  direction  of 
James'  Island.  Towards  morning,  heavy  fires 
broke  out  in  the  city,  and  explosions  occurred 
from  time  to  time.  At  break  of  day,  all  the  tugs 
and  picket  boats,  with  the  exception  of  the  tug 
Catalpa,  returned  to  the  bar  anchorage. 

About  6.30,  a.  m.,  the  Canonicus  got  under 
way,  and  steamed  up  the  channel  towards  Fort 
Moultrie,  the  Mahopac  and  the.  Catalpa  follow- 

*Greeley,  vol.  2,  p.  702 ;  Lossing,  vol.  3,  p.  464. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       163 

ing ;  but  the  air  was  so  hazy,  and  so  filled  with 
smoke,  that  only  a  dim  outline  of  the  city  and 
the  adjacent  islands  could  be  seen.  About  7.30, 
a.  m.,  the  sun  cleared  the  atmosphere  a  little, 
and  the  Canonicus  approached  to  within  long 
range  of  Moultrie,  and  threw  two  shells  into  that 
work,  being,  as  events  afterwards  demonstrated, 
the  last  hostile  shots  fired  in  the  siege  of  Charles 
ton.  These  shots  eliciting  no  response,  a  tug 
was  immediately  despatched  to  Captain  Scott, 
senior  officer  present  inside  the  bar,  to  inform 
him  that  no  movement  was  discoverable  on  Sulli 
van's  Island.  The  rebel  flag  was  still  flying  there, 
however,  as  well  as  on  Castle  Pinckney,  Fort 
Marshall,  and  in  the  city  ;  and  some  twenty  min 
utes  after  throwing  the  shells  into  Moultrie,  a 
magazine  blew  up  in  Battery  Bee.  Judging  from 
these  indications  that  a  party  of  rebels  still  re 
mained  on  the  island  to  complete  the  destruction 
of  their  stores  and  magazines,  it  was  not  deemed 
prudent  to  risk  a  boat's  crew  on  shore  until  the 
state  of  affairs  was  better  known,  nor,  (with  the 
recent  fate  of  the  Patapsco  staring  us  in  the 
face,)  was  it  deemed  justifiable  to  risk  the 
Canonicus  in  a  further  reconnoisance  up  the 
channel. 

Soon  after  the  explosion  in  Battery  Bee,  all 
hands  were  piped  to  breakfast,  and  the  Canon- 


1 64       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

icus  steamed  slowly  down  towards  Wagner  Buoy, 
passing  the  Mahopac  on  our  way  down.  When 
nearly  down  to  Wagner  Buoy,  an  Army  boat  was 
observed  to  push  off  from  Cummings'  Point,  and 
pull  in  the  direction  of  Sumter  ;  and  a  few  min 
utes  later,  a  boat,  showing  a  white  flag,  was  dis 
covered  pulling  over  from  Sullivan's  Island.  The 
Canonicus  was  immediately  put  about,  and  was 
soon  steaming  up  the  channel  again  at  full  speed. 
A  boat  was  also  manned,  and  armed,  and  sent  in 
charge  of  Acting  Ensign  R.  E.  Anson,  to  land 
on  Sullivan's  Island,  and  bring  off  the  rebel  flag, 
flying  on  Moultrie,  if  possible.  In  the  meantime, 
the  Army  boat  and  a  boat  from  the  Mahopac 
had  communicated  with  the  boat  carrying  a  flag 
of  truce,  and  now  all  three  boats  were  pulling 
for  the  coveted  prize — the  Moultrie  flag.  The 
Army  boat  had  the  start,  however,  and  after  a 
hard  pull  reached  the  beach  a  few  lengths  ahead 
of  the  other  boats.  Mr.  Anson  then  changed 
his  course,  and  landing  at  Fort  Beauregard, 
hoisted  the  national  colors  on  that  work  ;  the 
Mahopac's  boat,  pulling  in  the  opposite  direc 
tion,  soon  put  the  flag  on  the  flag-staff  of  Battery 
Bee.  Slow-matches,  leading  into  all  the  princi 
pal  magazines,  had  been  fired,  but  all,  with  the 
exception  of  the  one  applied  to  the  magazine  at 
Battery  Bee,  failed  to  go  off. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       165 

While  this  exciting  scene  was  being  enacted, 
another  boat  pushed  off  from  Battery  Gregg,  on 
Cummings'  Point,  filled  with  our  soldiers,  who, 
in  a  few  minutes,  occupied  Sumter,  and  placed 
the  flag  again  on  the  ruins  of  that  work.  As  the 
officer  jumped  ashore'with  the  colors  in  his  hand, 
the  crews  of  the  Canonicus  and  Mahopac  joined 
with  the  Army  in  nine  rousing  cheers  at  the  glo 
rious  termination  of  all  their  trials  and  discom 
fitures,  anxieties  and  hard  work,  at  this  fountain- 
head  of  treason  and  rebellion.  A  little  later, 
the  tug  Catalpa  steamed  into  the  harbor,  and 
took  possession  of  Mount  Pleasant  Battery,  while 
a  boat  from  the  Catskill  landed  at  Battery  Mar 
shall.  By  this  time  Captain  Scott  had  arrived  at 
the  front,  and  about  one  o'clock  the  Admiral  ar 
rived,  and  went  up  to  the  city  in  the  Harvest 
Moon.  The  evacuation  of  Sullivan's  Island 
must  have  been  very  hurriedly  conducted,  as  the 
guns  and  amunition  were  left  in  perfect  condi 
tion,  very  few  of  the  former  being  spiked.  In 
some  of  the  batteries,  cartridges  were  found  ly 
ing  on  the  gun  carriages,  and  projectiles  imme 
diately  under  the  muzzles  of  the  guns,  as  though 
they  had  been  abandoned  in  the  act  of  loading. 

The  last  shot  fired  at  the  naval  branch  of 
the  seige,  was  fired  from  a  rifled  gun  in  Moul- 
trie,  at  the  Canonicus,  on  the  4th  of  February. 


1 66       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

The  projectile  was  an  eight-inch-  shell,  and  struck 
the  ship  just  abaft  the  smoke-stack,  exploding 
on  the  impact,  but  doing  no  other  harm  than  cut 
ting  away  a  boat  davit. 
May  12,  1865. 

GEORGE  E.  BELKNAP." 

Landing  on  Sullivan's  Island,  some  time  af 
ter,  I  found  silence,  solitude  and  desolation  on 
every  side.  I  examined  all  the  fortifications,  not 
forgetting  the  solitary  grave  of  Osceola  ;  and 
then,  like  the  priest  in  the  Illiad,  I 

"  Silent  went  to  the  billowy  beach  of  the  vast  and 

voiceful  sea." 

Gazing  on  the  wrecks,  old  and  new,  of  blockade 
runners,  strewn  all  along  the  beach,  and  on  the 
many  deserted  works  of  defence,  hearing  no 
sound  save  the  melancholy  plashing  of  the  waves, 
I  thought  of  the  awe-inspiring  scene  which  lives 
forever  on  the  canvas  of  Tintoretto — showing 
the  earth,  desolate  and  disordered,  as  it  may  ap 
pear  when  the  race  of  man  shall  have  passed 
away. 

Passing  up  the  channel,  we  gazed  intently 
through  our  glasses  upon  the  fortifications  form 
ing  the  second  and  third  circles  of  fire,  of  which 
we  had  heard  so  much  ;  pilotted  by  a  pilot  lately 
captured  from  a  blockade-runner,  whom  the 
Fleet  Captain  threatened  with  immediate  death 
if  he  ran  us  upon  a  torpedo ;  and,  finally,  with  a 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       167 

tumult  of  conflicting  emotions,  we  landed  on  the 
wharf  safely. 

And  thus,  after  a  siege  which  will  rank 
among  the  most  famous  in  history,  Charleston 
became  ours.  •'  A  scarred  city,"  it  was,  as  Pol 
lard  well  says,  "  blackened  by  fire,  with  evidences 
of  ruin  and  destruction  at  almost  every  step." 
All  the  aspects  of  Nature  were  delightful.  The 
warm  sunshine,  the  fresh  air,  the  foliage  of  the 
wild  orange,  the  palmetto,  the  roses  in  bloom, 
the  violets,  the  geraniums,  &c.,  were  as  delight 
ful  as  when  Macreacly  landed  in  Charleston, 
twenty-one  years  before.'*  He  says,  "  The  white 
houses,  with  their  green  verandahs  and  gardens, 
were  light  and  lively  to  me,  and  the  frequent 
view  of  the  river  afforded  often  a  picturesqe  ter 
mination  to  the  street." 

But  the  grass  was  growing  in  the  deserted 
streets,  and  scarcely  a  white  face  was  to  be  seen. 
To  the  Afric-Americans,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
trumpet  of  Gabriel  had  really  sounded,  and  the 
"year  of  jubilee"  had  come.  They  went  into 
ecstacies  as  they  thought  that,  at  last,  at  last, 
they  were  free.  Never,  while  memory  holds 
power  to  retain  anything,  shall  I  forget  the  thrill 
ing  strains  of  the  music  of  the  Union,  as  sung 
by  our  sable  soldiers  when  marching  up  Meeting 
*Macready's  Reminiscences  and  Diaries,  p.  539. 


1 68       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

street,  with  their  battle-stained  banners  flapping 
in  the  breeze,  their  black  skins  shining  and  their 
white  eyes  glaring  with  wild  delight ; — 

"  Softening  with  Afric's  mellow  tongue 
Their  broken  Saxon  words." 

The  conduct  of  the  Mayor  of  Charleston 
was  not  what  would  have  been  expected  from  an 
experienced  lawyer  and  a  gentleman  of  culture 
like  Mr.  Macbeth.  He  neither  called  the  city 
council  together,  like  the  Mayor  of  Savannah  ; 
nor  came  out  to  meet  the  Federal  forces,  like 
the  Mayor  of  Columbia.  He  merely  sent  ''two 
aldermen  sandwiched  between  two  other  citi 
zens,"  to  say  that  the  Confederate  Army  had 
gone.  The  most  ignorant  hoodlum  that  the 
caprices  of  rumsellers  ever  tossed  into  the  civic 
chair,  could  hardly  have  acted  with  less  dignity 
in  a  critical  hour.  Had  the  city  officials  of 
Charleston  kept  their  wits  about  them,  and  at 
tended  vigilantly  to  their  duty,  the  terrible  de 
struction  of  life  and  property  which  occurred 
upon  the  withdrawal  of  General  Hardee,  might 
have  been  avoided.  When  Georgetown  was 
evacuated,  one  week  later,  the  authorities  there 
acted  far  more  becomingly  than  those  of  "the 
Liverpool  of  the  South/'  They  sent  at  once  to 
Admiral  Dahlgren  the  following  surrender,  sign 
ed  by  the  Intendant  and  Wardens  : — 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       169 

SIR  :  Whereas  the  confederate  forces  have  evac 
uated  this  town,  the  undersigned,  intendant  and 
wardens  in  council  assembled,  agreeably  to  your  de 
mand,  do  hereby  surrender  the  town  of  Georgetown 
to  the  United  States  forces  under  your  command, 
pledging  ourselves  upon  honor  in  our  official  capacity, 
as  far  as  lies  in  our  power,  to  prevent  any  act  inimi 
cal  to  the  United  States  forces  garrisoned  here,  claim 
ing  such  protection  of  persons  and  property  as  is  us 
ually  accorded  to  communities  in  our  situation. 

Thereupon  the  Admiral  issued  a  proclama 
tion,  putting  Georgetown  under  martial  law,  but 
continuing  the  intendant  and  wardens  in  the  ex 
ercise  of  many  of  their  functions  ;  providing  for 
the  poor,  and  prohibiting  "the  sale  or  gift  of  all 
spirituous  liquors."  The  senior  naval  line  offi 
cer  present  was  made  Post  Commandant  ;  the 
senior  marine  officer  was  made  Provost  Marshal ; 
while  the  Judge-Advocate  of  the  Fleet  was  des 
ignated  as  Provost  Judge.  This  arrangement, 
of  course,  ended  when,  a  few  days  later,  the 
Army  arrived. 

To  correct  the  falsifications  of  various 
writers,  it  may  be  stated  that  the  first  troops  to 
enter  Charleston  were  two  companies  of  the 
Fifty-second  Pennsylvania  Infantry,  and  a  sec 
tion  of  about  thirty  men  of  the  Third  Rhode 
Island  Artillery.  Other  troops  poured  in  rapid 
ly  during  the  afternoon,  and  marched  through 


i/o      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

the  streets  singing  "John  Brown's  body  lies 
mouldering  in  the  grave,"  "Shouting  the  Battle 
cry  of  Freedom,"  and  other  Union  songs,  in 
tones  that  must  have  made  the  bones  of  John 
C.  Calhoun  rattle  in  his  coffin. 

General  Schimmelfennig,  after  fighting  and 
winning,  with  the  loss  of  ninety  men,  a  battle  on 
James'  Island,  (which  later  events  proved  to  be 
unnecessary,)  approached  Charleston  from  the 
southwest,  crossed  the  Ashley,  and,  entering  the 
city,  proclaimed  martial  law,  and  put  an  end  to 
the  disorder  of  the  morning. 

Fifteen  prizes  were  captured  or  destroyed 
at  the  approaches  of  Charleston  during  Dahl- 
gren's  command,  and  a  larger  number  at  the  ap 
proaches  of  Savannah  and  other  ports  guarded 
by  this  squadron.  The  Charleston  prizes  were 
the  Beatrice,  Clotilda,  Cyclops,  Constance,  Celt, 
Columbia,  Deer,  Flora,  Lady  Davis,  Mab,  Presto, 
Prince  Albert,  Syren,  Transport,  and  a  lighter. 
The  Columbia,  which  was  an  iron-clad  ram  of 
the  Atlanta  pattern  ;  the  Lady  Davis,  which  was 
the  first  vessel  put  in  commission  in  the  Confed 
erate  Navy  ;  the  Transport,  the  Mab,  and  three 
torpedo  boats,  like  the  David,  were  captured  at 
the  evacuation  of  the  city,  and  were  not  sent  to 
a  prize  court,  because,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Navy 
Department,  they  were  not  distributable  as 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       1 7 1 

prize.  This  opinion  would  seem  to  be  in  accord 
with  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,*  though 
this  interpretation  of  the  prize  act  was  new  ;  and 
the  blockaders  of  Charleston  thought  it  hard 
that  it  should  be  applied  to  their  prizes. 

One  of  Dahlgren's  prizes  was  the  Evening 
Star,  which  afterwards  acquired  a  terrible  re 
nown.  She  was  lost  at  sea,  October  3,  1866, 
when  244  passengers,  including  a  whole  French 
opera  troupe,  perished  with  her.f  A  famous  law 
suit  in  New  Orleans  turned  on  the  question 
which  of  two  of  her  passengers  survived  the 
other.  By  the  Common  Law,  the  younger  is 
presumed  to  survive ;  but  by  the  Civil  Law, 
both  are  held  to  perish  together. 

The  last  prize  taken  at  Charleston  was  the 
Deer,J  which  entered  the  harbor,  lulled  to  sleep 

*The  Syren,  13  Wallace,  329 ;  1  Lowell,  282 ;  Dalilgren's 
Maritime  International  Law,  p.  146.  Strange  to  say,  this 
case  is  not  noticed  in  Baker's  admirable  edition  of  Ilal- 
leck's  International  Law. 

fSee  note  to  Browne's  Divorce  and  its  Consequences. 
J  1  Lowell's  Decisions,  95.  The  appendix  to  Mr.  Welles' 
Report  for  1865,  p.  466,  requires  correction.  The  actual 
captor  of  the  Deer  was  the  Catskill,  Lieutenant  Command, 
er  Edward  Barrett.  The  extraordinary  ovations  with 
which  Captain  Barrett  and  his  officers  have  been  honored 
on  ascending  the  Mississippi  in  the  Plymouth,  show  that 
the  cities  of  the  southwest  are  full  of  hearts  that  are 
gladdened,  as  of  yore,  at  the  sight  of  the  Star  Spangled 
Banner  flying  at  the  peak  of  a  Federal  man-of-war. 


172       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

by  the  old  Confederate  signal  fires,  (which  were 
now  kept  burning  for  the  purpose  of  decoy,) 
and  was  seized  before  she  discovered  her  mis 
take.  The  Federal  fleet  now  occupied  the  in 
ner  harbor,  while  the  three  Confederate  Rams, 
which  had  so  long  guarded  the  channel — the 
Chicora,  Palmetto  State,  and  City  of  Charleston 
— lay  in  fragments  beneath  the  waves,  having 
been  blown  up  by  Commodore  Tucker.* 

It  was  claimed  by  certain  traders  that  the 
occupation  of  the  city  terminated,  tpso  facto,  the 
blockade  of  the  port ;  but  I  held  that  it  did  not, 
and  that  Charleston  and  Savannah  were  closed 
lor  all  purposes  of  commerce  until  reopened  by 
the  Proclamation  of  the  President.  This  view 
was  sustained  by  the  Secretaries  of  State,  and 
of  the  Navy  ;  and  the  blockade  remained  till 
the  close  of  the  war. 

The  pretence  put  forth  by  Boynton,  after 
the  repulse  of  the  Monitors  in  1863,  "that  the 

* "  The  burning  and  blowing  up  of  the  iron-clads 
Palmetto  State,  Chicora  and  Charleston,  was  a  magnifi 
cent  spectacle.  The  Palmetto  State  was  the  first  to  ex 
plode,  and  was  followed  by  the  Chicora,  about  nine  o'clock, 
and  the  Charleston,  about  eleven,  A.  M.  The  latter,  it  is 
stated,  had  twenty  tons  of  gunpowder  on  board.  Pieces 
of  the  iron  plates,  red  hot,  fell  on  the  wharves  and  set 
them  on  fire.  The  explosions  were  terrific.  Tremendous 
clouds  of  smoke  went  up  forming  beautiful  wreaths." — 
Charleston  Courier. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 73 

occupation  of  Charleston  was  of  very  little  im 
portance,"  is  unworthy  of  any  historian.  It  is 
the  fox's  cry,  "Those  grapes  are  sour."  Equal 
ly  untrue  is  it,  that  "Admiral  Dahlgren,  with  his 
monitor  guards  within  the  bar,  sealed  the  port  of 
Charleston  as  effectually  as  if  his  fleet  had  been 
anchored  between  Sumter  and  the  wharves*." 

Perhaps,  it  is  true,  that  "it  could  have  been 
captured  by  a  determined  attack,  such  as  was 
made  at  New  Orleans,  Mobile  and  Fort  Fish 
er.'^  But  it  is  no  disparagement  to  either  side 
to  say  that  the  Confederates  made  far  greater 
efforts  in  defending  than  the  Federals  in  attack 
ing  -it,  and  that  thereby  they  kept  us  out  of  it. 
When,  at  last,  it  fell  into  our  hands,  Pollard, 
the  Confederate  historian,  took  up  the  cry  of 
"sour  grapes."  He  says  :  "The  vital  points  of 
the  Confederacy  were  far  in  the  interior,  and  as 
we  had  but  few  war  vessels,  our  ports  and  har 
bors  were  of  little  importance  to  us." 

It  was  a  bon  mot  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
"  Whom  God  abhors  he  sends  to  sea."  And  so 
thousands  of  our  sailors  felt,  during  the  long 
blockade.  Lord  Macaulay  says,  "No  place  is 

*Professor  Bernard's  book  on  the  Neutrality  of  Great 
Britain  during  the  American  Civil  War,  pp.  286—291, 
contains  much  that  is  of  value  touching  blockade- running 
at  Charleston. 

fBoynton,  vol.  1,  p.  430—431. 


174       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

so  propitious  to  the  formation  either  of  close 
friendships  or  of  deadly  enmities  as  an  Indiaman, 
[or  a  man-of-war  blockading  a  hostile  coast.] 
There  are  very  few  people  who  do  not  find  a 
voyage  which  lasts  several  months  insupportably 
dull.  Anything  is  welcome  which  may  break 
that  long  monotony — a  sail,  a  shark,  an  alba 
tross,  a  man  overboard.  *  *  The  inmates 
of  the  ship  are  thrown  together  far  more  than 
in  any  country-seat  or  boarding-bouse.  None 
can  escape  from  the  rest  except  by  imprisoning 
himself  in  a  cell  in  which  he  can  hardly  turn. 
All  food,  all  exercise,  is  taken  in  company. 
It  is  every  day  in  the  power  of  a  mischievqus 
person  to  inflict  innumerable  annoyances  ;  it  is 
every  day  in  the  power  of  an  amiable  person 
to  confer  little  services.  It  not  seldom  happens 
that  serious  distress  and  clanger  call  forth  in 
genuine  beauty  and  deformity  heroic  virtues 
and  abject  vices,  which,  in  the  ordinary  inter 
course  of  good  society,  might  remain  during 
many  years  unknown  even  to  intimate  associ 
ates."*  Most  grateful  was  the  relief  which 
came  with  the  occupation  of  Charleston. 

Upon  getting  acquainted  with  the  people 
of  Charleston,  I  found  them  frank,  affable,  and 
free  from  sectional  bitterness.  As  the  South 

*Macaulay's  Essay  on  Hastings. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       175 

Carolina  pickets  were  among  the  first  to  aban 
don  the  barbarous  practice  of  shooting  our 
pickets ;  so  the  South  Carolina  people  were  in 
my  experience  among  the  first  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  their  construction  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  was  no  longer  admissible. 

I  often  mentioned  the  fact,  that,  when  the 
Constitution  was  formed,  their  construction  of 
that  instrument  was  as  common  in  the  North 
as  it  afterwards  became  in  the  South,  and  that 
those  who  contended  for  our  modern  interpre 
tation  of  it  resisted  its  adoption  because  it  was 
open  to  that  interpretation.  In  the  Massachu 
setts  Convention  of  1788,  the  delegates  from 
Middlesex  voted  25  to  17  against  its  adoption. 

"The  vote  of  the  whole  Convention  was  187 
to  1 68, —  only  a  majority  of  19  in  favor  of  the 
Constitution,  in  Massachusetts.  Had  the  Con 
stitution  been  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people 
of  Massachusetts,  it  is  highly  probable  that  it 
would  have  been  rejected. 

Seldom  has  a  greater  result  depended  upon 
so  small  a  cause.  The  change  of  ten  Delegates 
from  the  Valley  of  the  Merrimack  would  prob 
ably  have  defeated  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States.  Such  a  change 
would  clearly  have  placed  Massachusetts  against 
that  scheme  of  government ;  and  Madison, 


176     LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

looking  anxiously  out  of  his  Virginia  home, 
wrote:  — 'The  decision  of  Massachusetts,  in 
either  way,  will  decide  the  vote  of  this  State.' 

Those  views  of  State  Rights  and  State 
Sovereignty  which  culminated  in  our  Civil  War, 
were  as  strenuously  maintained  by  thousands  of 
the  men  of  Middlesex  and  other  Northern 
Counties,  in  1789,  as  in  Charleston  or  any  other 
Southern  City  in  1861."* 

Just  as  the  entire  coast  blockaded  by  this 
squadron  had  thus  been  recovered,  I  had  an 
attack  of  pneumonia,  which,  though  short, 
was  severe  and  sharp,  and  for  a  time  seemed 
likely  to  be  decisive.  It  had  been  my  fortune 
to  confront  death  in  different  forms — in  perils 
from  sickness,  and  from  railroad  accidents,  as 
well  as  in  perils  of  the  sea  and  of  battle,  both 
on  land  and  sea ;  and  whether  I  contemplated 
it  as  the  end  of  life  or  as  only  an  /event  of  life, 
I  had  come  to  look  upon  it  with  something  like 
equanimity.  I  was  not  destitute  of  the  "  good 
hope,"  which  John  Morley  says  creates  at  the 
hour  of  sunset  no  mean  paradise, — "  that  the 
earth  shall  still  be  fair,  and  the  happiness  of  every 
feeling  creature  still  receive  a  constant  augmen 
tation,  and  each  good  cause  yet  find  worthy 

*Cowley's  Historical  Sketch  of  Middlesex  County,  in 
the  Middlesex  County  Manual    p.  77. 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       1 77 

-.  * 

defenders  when  the  memory  of  my  own  poor 
name  and  personality  had  long  been  blotted  out 
of  the  brief  recollection  of  men  forever." 

Brilliantly  as  Mr.  Morley  sets  forth  "the 
blessedness  of  annihilation,"  and  "  the  peace  of 
anticipated  non-existence,"  no  pomp  of  rhetoric 
can  conceal  the  wretched  affectation  that  lurks 
beneath.  Whatever  sublime  stoic  philosophic 
indifference  pious  positivists  like  Mr.  Mill,  Mr. 
Morley,  and  Miss  Martineau,  may  educate 
themselves  to  feel  touching  their  own  immor 
tality,  "  the  gift  of  eternal  life"  is  a  priceless 
boon.  A  million  times  better  than  this  "  good 
hope  "  of  Mr.  Morley,  at  the  supreme  moment, 
is  the  humble  prayer-hymn  of  Toplady,  so  often 
sung  by  the  open  coffin-lid  : — 

"  Rock  of  ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  thee." 

For  hours  I  lay  in  such  exquisite  pain  that 
I  was  unable  to  move  hand  or  foot;  yet  near 
enough  to  the  ward-room  to  hear  the  careless 
remarks  of  the  officers  present.  If  what  was 
said  of  my  character  and  services  was  sufficient 
ly  nattering,  I  was  not  greatly  edified  by  such 
remarks  as  these : — "I  guess  the  Jack  will 
never  be  hoisted  for  him  again,"  (alluding  to  the 
flag  which  is.  always  hoisted  when  a  Naval 
General  Court-Martial  convenes.)  "I  understand 
Captain is  going  to  take  his  place." 


1 78       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

"  It  is  a  good  time  for  him  to  die  now  ;'  the  Ad 
miral  will  give  him  a  big  funeral,"  &c.,  &c.*~ 
More  encouraging  was  a  remark  made  by  the 
Doctor  :  "  Well,  if  he  lives  till  this  time  to-mor 
row  without  getting  worse,  I  guess  he'll  pull 
through." 

A  few  days  later,  the  body  of  Lieutenant 
Bradford,  son  of  the  Fleet  Surgeon,  was  taken 
from  the  Potters'  Field,  where  the  Confederates 
had  buried  it,  (he  having  been  captured  in  the 
assault  on  Sumter  and  died  in  prison  in  Charles- 
Ion,)  and  buried  with  all  naval  and  military  hon 
ors  in  the  Magnolia  Cemetery.  Returning  from 
these  obsequies  with  Fleet  Captain  Bradford,  I 
was  told  by  him  that,  had  I  died  as  he  expected, 
the  Admiral  designed  to  give  me  "  the  funeral  of 
an  Achilles."  Since  then,  the  Admiral,  the  Fleet 
Captain,  the  surgeon  who  attended  me  with  such 
thoughtful  care,  and  the  captain  who  expected 
to  succeed  me,  have  all  descended  to  the  tomb, 
while  I,  for  whom  the  grave  then  yawned,  sur 
vive  them  all ! 

*People  that  are  not  hard-hearted  sometimes  make 
most  brutal  remarks.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  once  lay 
sick  of  yellow  fever  in  a  New  Orleans  hospital,  and  who 
recovered  when,  by  custom,  he  should  have  died,  says,  he 
heard  the  head-surgeon  twice  inquire  of  a  subordinate 

in  impatient  tones,  two  days  in  succession,"  Aiut dead 

yet  ?"    The  cot  he  lay  on  was  wanted  for  another. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       1 79 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

Destruction  of  the  Harvest  Moon — Death  of  Gen 
eral  Schirnraelfennig — The  Federal  Flag  restored  over 
Surater — Distinguished  Visitors  in  Charleston — As 
sassination  of  President  Lincoln. 

On  March  1st,  occurred  the  last  casualty  in 
our  fleet  by  the  sub-marine  devices  of  the  Con 
federates.  The  steamer  Harvest  Moon,  used  for 
the  time  being  by  the  Admiral  and  his  staff,  in 
lieu  of  the  flag-ship,  was  steaming  down  Win- 
yaw  Bay,  when,  before  breakfast,  the  explosion 
of  a  torpedo  was  heard  below,  and  in  less  than 
a  minute  the  vessel  lay  at  the  bottom.  Fortu 
nately  only  one  man  was  killed  ; — and  the  vessel 
not  being  entirely  submerged,  everything  of  value 
was  soon  recovered.  Several  Confederate  ves 
sels  were  lost  accidentally  by  torpedoes  intended 
for  the  Federals.""' 

*See  Barnes'  Sub-marine  Warfare.  Also,  Admiral 
Porter's  article  in  the  North  American  Review,  September- 
October,  1878 ;  Captain  Simpson's  article  in  the  Galaxy, 
September,  1877 ;  Ediriburg  Review,  and  Westminster 
Review,  October  1877.  By  a  slip  of  the  pen,  or  an  error 
of  the  types,  Admiral  Porter  is  made  to  say  that  the  Wa- 
bash  and  the  Minnesota  were  '"lost,"  by  torpedoes, 
(p.  231,)  which  is  not  true. 


i So      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Within  a  month  after  the  recovery  of  Charles 
ton,  several  officers  of  the  Federal  Army  and 
Navy  had  purchased  plantations  near  that  city, 
and  prepared  to  make  their  abode  there.  The 
inducements  to  do  this  were  strong,  and  the 
prospect  of  making  handsome  returns  on  capital 
invested  in  cotton-planting  was  highly  flattering. 
It  was  demonstrated  to  me  by  my  managing  man 
that  the  plantation  which  I  had  bought,  between 
the  Ashley  and  the  Wando,  would  yield  ten 
thousad  dollars  in  crops,  in  one  season,  after 
paying  all  expenses. 

The  sceptical  spirit  in  which  I  offered  to 
give  all  the  profits  of  that  year,  exceeding  two 
thousand  dollars,  to  any  man  who  would  pay  me 
that  sum  therefor,  semed  to  surprise  my  neigh 
bors,  who,  however,  admitted  my  doubts  to  be 
well  founded  when,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  I 
found  myself  a  loser  rather  than  a  gainer  by  my 
experiment  as  a  cotton-planter. 

On  April  loth,  1865,  Gen.  Schimmelfennig 
was  compelled  by  failing  health  to  relinquish 
the  command  of  the  Northern  District  of  this 
Department  and  return  North  after  twenty 
month's  service.  In  his  farewell  letter  to  Ad 
miral  Dahlgren  he  traced  with  rapid  strokes  the 
history  of  his  own  services,  and  said: — 

"When    General    Grant   forced   the  enemy 


LIFE  A  PL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       1 8 1 

back  from  the  Rappahannock  to  Richmond, 
troops  in  my  front  received  marching  orders. 
I  immediately  attacked  ;  these  troops  were  not 
sent  north,  and  the  commanding  officer  in 
Charleston  called  for  re-enforcements  from 
Virginia. 

"When  General  Sherman  fought  his  battles 
before  Atlanta,  I  again,  under  orders  from  Gen 
eral  Foster,  attacked  the  enemy,  and  the  result 
was  that  troops  were  sent  from  Atlanta  to 
Charleston,  though  the  enemy  outnumbered  us 
two  to  one. 

"Once  more,  when  General  Sherman  was 
about  to  force  his  way  over  the  North  Edisto 
river,  I  attacked  and  harassed  the  enemy  con 
tinually  for  a  week.  Not  a  man  was  detached 
from  Charleston ;  and  when  General  Hardee 
finally  evacuated  the  city  he  had  a  force  nearly 
double  to  that  of  all  the  troops  operating 
against  Charleston  under  General  Gillmore. 

"I  mention  these  facts,  Admiral,  merely  in 
order  to  add  that  I  SHOULD  NEVER  HAVE  BEEN 

ABLE  TO  ATTAIN  THESE  RESULTS  WITHOUT  THE 
HEARTY  AND  MOST  EFFECTIVE  ASSISTANCE  OF 
THE  FLEET  UNDER  YOUR  COMMAND." 

The  Admiral  had  become  much  attached 
to  this  officer,  who  was  a  Prussian  by  birth,  and 
who  had  been  trained  in  the  Army  of  the 


1 82       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Kaiser.  On  going  aboard  the  Steamer  Mas 
sachusetts,  which  carried  him  to  Philadelphia, 
he  was  honored  with  a  salute  by  the  Navy, 
which  touched  him  much.  "I  thank  your  Ad 
miral,"  he  said  ;  "I  thank  him  much,  and  you, 
too,  and  all  your  brothers  of  the  Navy.  You  have 
all  been  good  brothers  to  me;  I  never  wanted 
any  thing  done,  but  you  did  it.  But  all  is  past 
now.  I  shall  never  have  another  command." 
Then,  suddenly  realizing  his  own  condition, 
struggling  with  his  feelings  as  though  his  great 
heart  would  break,  he  added  "  I  am  going  home 
to  die,  Judge  Cowley;  I  am  going  home  to  die!" 
A  few  weeks  after,  this  intrepid  spirit  passed  to 
the  life  beyond  life. 

Many  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  who 
assisted  in  restoring  the  Federal  flag  over  Sum- 
ter,  April  14,  1865,  published  accounts  of  that 
event  and  of  Charleston  as  it  then  was  ;  but  the 
best  articles  that  I  have  seen  touching  the  terri 
tory  about  Charleston  are  those  in  Harper's 
Magazine  for  December,  1865,  and  November, 
1878.  No  historian  of  these  times  has  omitted 
the  restoration  of  the  flag  by  Anderson  to  the 
fort  which  he  had  surrendered,  four  years  before. 
President  Lincoln  took  a  deep  interest  in 
that  event,  and  invited  George  Thompson  of 
England,  the  eloquent  coadjutor  of  Clarkson 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       183 

and  Wilberforce,  to  unite  with  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  other  cham 
pions  of  freedom  in  America,  in  the  services  of 
that  memorable  day. 

The  oration  of  Mr.  Beecher  was  worthy  of 
his  renown.  He  commenced  with  his  head  un 
covered,  as  usual ;  but  the  high  wind  behaved 
outrageously  ajnd  blew  his  hair  about  in  all  direc 
tions,  like  smoke  and  flame  from  a  burning  brush- 
heap.  So  Mr.  Beecher  quietly  put  on  his  hat, 
(a  black,  felt,  uncanonical  article,)  and  wore  it  to 
the  end.  One  battery  was  delayed  in  firing 
the  salute  ordered  for  the  occasion,  so  that  its 
guns  were  booming  after  the  oration  began.  The 
reports  happened  to  be  so  timed  that  they  fell 
upon  the  ear  exactly  at  the  close  of  sentences. 
Collusion  was  suspected  between  the  orator  and 
the  gunner,  but  the  orator  denied  all  privity  with 
any  plan  to  punctuate  his  oration  with  cannon. 
Two  or  three  extracts  indicate  the  elevated  spirit 
of  this  oration  : 

"  Are  we  come  to  exult  that  Northern  hands  are 
stronger  than  Southern  ?  No;  but  to  rejoice  that  the 
hands  of  those  who  defend  a  just  and  beneficent  gov 
ernment  are  mightier  than  the  hands  that  assaulted 
it !  Do  we  exult  over  fallen  cities-  ?  We  exult  that 
a  Nation  has  not  fallen.  We  sorrow  with  the  sorrow 
ful.  We  sympathise  with  the  desolate.  We  look 
upon  this  shattered  fort,  and  yonder  dilapidated  city, 


1 84       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

with  sad  eyes.  We  exult,  not  for  a  passion  gratified, 
but  for  a  sentiment  victorious  ;  not  for  temper,  but  for 
conscience  ;  not — as  we  devoutly  believe — that  our 
will  is  done,  but  that  God's  will  hath  been  done." 

"  There  is  scarcely  a  man  born  in  the  South  who 
has  lifted  his  hand  against  this  banner,  but  had  a 
father  who  would  have  died  for  it.  Is  memory  dead  ? 
Is  there  no  historic  pride  ?  Has  a  fatal  fury  struck 
blindness  gr  hate  into  eyes  that  use*d  to  look  kindly 
toward  each  other;  that  read  the  same  Bible;  that 
hung  over  the  historic  pages  of  our  national  glory  ; 
that  studied  the  same  Constitution?"4 

The  peroration  was  admirable.  The  follow 
ing  sentence  was  spoken  with  marked  emphasis, 
and  was  most  heartily  applauded  ;  none  dream 
ing  that  when  the  tidings  of  this  event  reached 
the  capital,  Abraham  Lincoln  would  be  welter 
ing  in  his  blood  : 

"  We  offer  to  the  President  of  these  United 
States  our  solemn  congratulations  that  God  has  sus 
tained  his  life  and  health  under  the  unparalleled 
burdens  and  sufferings  of  four  bloody  years,  and  per 
mitted  him  to  behold  this  auspicious  consummation 
of  that  national  unity  for  which  he  has  waited  with 
so  much  patience  and  fortitude,  and  for  which  he  has 
labored  with  such  disinterested  wisdom.  *  * 

*This  paragraph  was  put  in  type  bv  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  in  the  office  of  the  Courier,  which  published  the 
oration  and  an  account  of  the  commemorative  services, 
on  the  following  day. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       185 

To  the  officers  and  men  of  the  army  and  navy, 
who  have  so  faithfully,  skillfully  and  gloriously  up 
held  their  country's  authority,  by  suffering,  labor  and 
sublime  courage,  we  offer  a  heart-tribute  beyond  the 
compass  of  words. 

Upon  those  true  and  faithful  citizens,  men  and 
women,  who  have  borne  up  with  unflinching  hope  in 
the  darkest  hour,  and  covered  the  land  with  their  la 
bors  of  love  and  charity,  we  invoke  the  divinest  bless 
ing  of  Him  whom  they  have  so  truly  imitated. 

But  chiefly  to  Thee,  Grod  of  our  fathers,  we  ren 
der  thanksgiving  and  praise  for  the  wonderous  provi 
dence  that  has  brought  forth  from  such  a  harvest  of 
war  the  seed  of  so  much  liberty  and  peace." 

There  were  passages  in  Dr.  Storr's  prayer 
which  fell  upon  the  ear  like  harmonies  of  celes 
tial  music  : 

"  Remember  those  who  have  been  our  enemies 
and  turn  their  hearts  from  wrath  and  war  to  love  and 
peace.  Let  the  desolations  that  have  come  on  them 
suffice,  and  unite  them  with  us  in  the  ties  of  a  better 
brotherhood  than  of  old;  that  the  cities  and  homes 
and  happiness  they  have  lost  may  be  more  than  re 
placed  in  the  long  prosperity  they  shall  hereafter 
know.  ******** 

Help  us  who  are  here  assembled  before  Thee,  and 
who  never  again  shall  be  so  assembled  until  we  stand 
before  Thy  bar,  to  consecrate  ourselves  afresh,  on  this 
historic  day,  to  the  welfare  of  our  land;  to  the  cause, 
and  the  cross,  and  the  truth  of  our  Lord ;  that  we  may 


1 86      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

live  evermore  to  Thy  glory,  may  walk  in  Thy  lightf 
may  die  at  last  in  Thy  perfect  peace,  and  may  rise  to 
our  rest  in  the  bosom  of  Thy  lave." 

The  lofty  charity  expressed  in  these  pas 
sages  shone  by  contrast  with  the  barbaric  bit 
terness  and  sectional  rancor  that  disfigured  the 
famous  funeral  sermon  at  Savannah,  which 
Bishop  Elliott  preached,  a  few  months  earlier, 
over  Bishop-General  Polk  :  yet,  the  sermon  of 
Bishop  Elliott  was  not  wanting  in  passages  of 
exquisite  tenderness  and  beauty.  Addressing 
the  dead  body  before  him,  he  said  :  "Thou  art 
very  welcome  to  me,  my  brother;  welcome  in 
death  as  in  life.  *  *  Thy  ashes  shall  repose 
beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Church  of  Christ." 

_On  the  day  following  the  Sumter  fete,  an 

immense  throng  crowded  the  African  Church  to 
greet  and  hear  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  George 
Thompson,  Henry  Wilson,  and  others  from  the 
North.  Thousands  being  unable  to  gain  admit 
tance,  a  supplementary  meeting  was  held  at  Cit 
adel  Square.  There  was  one  scene  in  the  church, 
pre-arranged  by  Mr.  Redpath,  which  those  who 
witnessed  it  will  never  forget.  It  was  that  of  the 
eloquent  natural  orator,  Samuel  Dickerson,  and 
his  two  daughters,  full-blooded  blacks,  and  eman 
cipated  slaves,  presenting  to  the  brave  old  Gar 
rison  a  wreath  of  the  most  beautiful  flowers  of 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       187 

that  semi-tropical  climate,  together  with  a  wel 
come  to  Charleston,  and  the  thanks  and  bene- 
cliclions  of  their  race. 

That  scene,  I  venture  to  predict,  will  live 
again  hereafter  on  the  painter's  burning  canvas 
and  on  the  historian's  pictured  page. 

Mr.  Garrison's  unstudied  speech, — "  I  have 
been  an  out-law,  with  a  price  set  upon  my  head, 
for  thirty  years,  for  your  sakes  ;  but  I  never  ex 
pected  to  look  you  in  the  face,  or  that  you  would 
ever  hear  of  anything  I  might  do  in  your  be 
half," — showed  how  truly  he  had  learned  and 
practiced  that  duty  of  self-sacrifice  and  of  self- 
denying  labor  for  others  which  Christianity  en 
joins  as  the  sublimest  duty  of  man. 

The  principal  addresses  on  that  day  rose  to 
real  eloquence.  What  contributed  to  make  them 
so  was  the  consciousness  that  the  speakers  were 
greater  than  their  words  — that  there  was  in 
them  "  something  greater  than  all  eloquence, — 
action, — noble,  sublime,  God-like  action." 

The  most  eloquent  of  the  speakers  on  that 
day  was  George  Thompson,  whose  decease,  at  a 
ripe  old  age,  in  his  own  native  land,  has  been 
telegraphed  by  the  Atlantic  Cable  since  these 
pages  were  put  in  type. 

ult  is  hard."  he  said,  "to  believe  that  I  am  at 
once  in  the  cradle  and  the  grave  of  treason,  secession 


1 88       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

and  slavery.  To  me  it  lias  been  given  to  see  two 
great,  pure,  signal,  glorious  triumphs  effected.  To  me 
lias  been  given  the  unspeakable  privilege  of  being  a 
co-laborer  with  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson,  who  led  the 
way  in  the  great  struggle  for  British  abolition — the 
abolition  of  the  internal  slave-trade,  and  its  child, 
slavery.  To  me,  also,  it  has  been  given  to  see  their 
triumph,  to  see  them  go  up  to  heaven,  presenting  at 
the  throne  of  the  heavenly  grace  a  million  of  broken 
manacles,  and  Africa  redeemed  from  her  English 
spoiler. 

Now  it  is  my  privilege  to  be  the  co-worker  and 
companion  in  joy  of  the  Wilberforce  of  America — 
William  Lloyd  Garrison.  For  thirty  years  and  more 
my  heart  has  been  with  you  ;  with  you  on  the  planta 
tion,  with  you  on  the  auction  block,  with  you  in  your 
unrequited  toil,  with  you  in  your  sufferings,  separa 
tions,  and  scourgings;  and  now  I  am  with  you  "in 
your  freedoir. 

During  the  thirty  years  that  have  elapsed  be 
tween  my  first  and  last  visit,  a  revolution  has  taken 
place  at  the  Xorth.  I  left  the  colleges  on  the  side  of 
slavery.  I  returned  and  found  the  colleges  on  the 
side  of  liberty.  I  left  America  when  there  was  but 
one  man  [John  Quincy  Adams]  in  the  House  of  Con 
gress  who  dared  to  present  an  anti-slavery  petition. 
I  returned  and  found  scarce  a  man  injUongress  who 
would  not  deem  himself  honored  by  being  selected  to 
present  such  a  petition.  I  left  America  with  the  news 
papers  of  the  country  and  the  literature  of  the  country 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       189 

on  the  side  of  slavery.  I  returned  and  find  the  news 
papers  and  literature,  the  best  ;md  most  popular  works 
published  in  the  country,  on  the  side  of  freedom.  I 
find  the  man  who  towers  the  highest  in  the  estima 
tion  of  the  people  of  the  North  is  the  man  most  earn 
estly,  most  sincerely,  most  uncompromisingly  devoted 
to  the  cause  of  universal,  impartial  freedom." 

In  the  evening  of  that  day,  a  delegation  of 
colored  women  called  on  Mr.  Beecher.  Four 
of  these  women  had  been  caught  in  the  act  of 
carrying  food,  medicines,  and  bandages  in  the 
night  to  prisoners  on  the  Race  Course,  and  had 
been  lashed  on  their  backs  for  thus  seeking  to 
do  what  the  Church  prays  God  to  do — "  to  show 
pity  upon  all  prisoners  and  captives."  One  of 
them  had  received  seventy-five  lashes  on  her 
bare  back  for  her  humanity  and  kindness  toward 
these  suffering  men. 

OixEaster  Sunday,  April  i6th,  Mr.  Beecher 
preached  in  the  same  Church.  But  as  the  hour 
struck  when  the  the  sound  of  the  church-going 
bell  would  have  been  heard  if  all  the  bells  of 
Charleston  had  not  been  removed  or  melted  into 
cannon,  I  left  for  Cuba  in  the  Steamer  Mary 
Sanford,  and  did  not  hear  him. 

"  From  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous,"  said 
Thomas  Paine,  "there  is  but  a  step."  Parting 
from  Beecher  at  Charleston,  when  in  the  zenith 


LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

of  his  fame,  I  met  him  again,  ten  years  later,  in 
the  Supreme  Court  at  Brooklyn,  when  brought 
to  trial  there  by  one  who  went  with  him  to 
Charleston  as  his  parasite  and  protege. 

Previous  to  sailing,  I  took  a  walk  with  Sen 
ator  Wilson  to  the  churchyard  of  St.  Michael's 
Church,  and  showed  him,  in  a  thicket,  covered 
Vith  brambles  and  weeds,  the  grave  of  the  elo 
quent  Hayne,  the  antagonist  of  Webster,  Wil 
son's  own  predecessor  in  the  Senate,  in  the  great 
Nullification  Debate  of  1830.  Neither  of  us 
spoke  for  some  minutes.  Words  had  lost  their 
power,  as  we  stood  by  the  grave  of  that  apostle 
of  secession,  and  gazed  on  the  ruin  which  his 
doctrines  had  brought  upon  the  city  of  his  love. 

Tears  filled  Mr.  Wilson's  eyes,  and  his  fea 
tures  bore  the  evidence  of  strong  emotion  as  he 
stood  thoughtful,  silent,  motionless,  as  if  rivetted 
to  that  charmed  spot.  At  length,  I  broke  the 
silence  by  saying  that,  if  I  only  had  the  power 
of  a  painter,  I  would  try  my  hand  on  a  scene 
which,  in  the  hands  of  a  good  artist,  would  live 
for  centuries.  "  What  do  you  mean  ?"  inquired 
Wilson.  "  Why,  I  would  take  for  my  subject 
'  The  Successor  of  Daniel  Webster  at  the  Grave 
of  Robert  Y.  Hayne!'"  "  It  would  be  good," 
Wilson  rejoined.  "  I  would  not  have  missed  this 
for  all  there  is  in  Charleston  besides  !" 


FLAG  SHIP  "PHILADELPHIA." 
Charleston  Harbor,  S.  C.  April  19,  1865. 

A  grievous  affliction  has  fallen  upon  the 
Nation.  President  Lincoln  has  been  as 
sassinated.  The  vessels  of  this  command 
will  wear  their  colors  at  half  mast,  until 
further  orders. 

On  the  receipt  of  this  order  twenty-one 
minute  guns  will  be  fired  from  every  vessel 
in  the  squadron,  beginning  with  the  senior 
vessel  ;  each  vessel  following  in  the  order 
of  senority.  The  minute  guns  will  be  re 
peated  at  sunset. 

The  Officers  will  also  wear  crape  on  the 
left  arm.  [This  badge  of  mourning  con 
tinued  to  be  worn  for  six  months.] 

Other  orders  will  be  issued  by  the  Navy 
Department.*  The  sorrow  we  all  feel  for 
our  loss,  indicates  the  above  as  the  first 
proper  manifestation. 

JOHN    A.  DAHLGREN, 
Rear  Admiral,  Commanding 
South  Atlantic  Blockading  Squadron. 


*Th*'se  orders  directed  among  other  things,  that 
the  commandants  of  squadrons,  navy  yards,  and 
stations  cause  the  ensign  of  every  vessel  etc.  to  be 
hoisted  at  half-mast,  and  a  gun  to  be  fired  every 
half  hour,  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 


192       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

The  news  of  the  murder  of  President  Lin 
coln  reached  Charleston  April  iQth,  during  my 
absence  ;  and  I  give,  on  another  page,  the  order 
issued  by  Admiral  Dahlgren  on  that  occasion. 
The  Admiral  had  a  strong  personal  affection  for 
the  President,  and  was  much  beloved  by  him,  in 
turn.  While  commandant  of  the  Washington 
Navy  Yard,  he  often  contributed  to  fill  the  ach 
ing  void  in  the  President's  saddened  heart.  "  1 
like  to  see  Dahlgren,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln.  "The 
drive  to  the  Navy  Yard  is  one  of  my  greatest 
pleasures.  When  I  am  depressed,  I  like  to  talk 
with  Dahlgren.  I  learn  something  of  the  prepa 
rations  for  defence,  and  I  get  from,  him  consola 
tion  and  courage.  On  the  whole,  I  like  to  see 
Dahlsrren." 


CHAPTER   IX. 

A  Trip  to  the  Tropics — Havanna — Cuban  Scenes 
—  Charles  the  Fifth's  Judge- Advocate  —  Palmetto 
Politics — Close  of  Admiral  Dahlgren's  Command. 

The  path  of  the  Mary  Sanford  lay  off  the 
coast  of  the  beautiful  Sea  Islands.  We  were 
four  days  from  Charleston  when  the  weekly  mail 
steamer  for  Havanna,  which  left  New  York  the 
Saturday  before,  came  up  with  us,  wearing  her 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       193 

flag  at  half-mast.  We  sent  a  boat  to  her  for  the 
news.  The  boat  soon  returned  with  copies  of 
the  Herald,  Tribune,  Times,  and  World,  and 
also — horror  of  horrors  ! — the  news  of  the  assas- 
ination  of  President  Lincoln  !  The  feeling  pro 
duced  upon  all  on  board  was  intense  ;  and  tears 
rolled  freely  down  the  cheeks  of  old  sailors, 
who,  before  the  abolition  of  flogging,  had  taken 
their  forty  stripes  save  one  without  flinching.  It 
seemed  as  if  every  man  had  lost  his  best  friend 
— "  as  if  the  hunter's  path,  and  the  sailor's,  in 
the  great  solitude  of  wilderness  and  sea,  were 
henceforth  more  lonely  and  less  safe  than  be 
fore."  We  were  now  off  the  coast  guarded  by  the 
East  Gulf  Blockading  Squadron,  and  "  clipped 
our  flag  "  to  Admiral  Stribling  as  we  approached 
his  flag-ship.  Blockaders  had  few  attractions  for 
us,  then  ;  so  we  pushed  on  towards  the  "  ever- 
faithful  isle." 

On  Friday  night,  I  could  smell  oders  of 
tropical  vegetation  waited  across  many  leagues 
of  sea.  The  canopy  of  heaven  seemed  studded 
more  thickly  than  ever  with  what  Prince  Albert 
called  "  terraces  of  stars  ;" — (which  I  think  a  fe 
licitous  phrase,  though  Humboldt  sneered  at  it 
as  too  fanciful.)  Among  the  many  strange  con 
stellations,  I  soon  recognized  the  Southern  Cross 
marching  in  triumph  across  the  sky. 


194       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

How  few  of  those  who  "  make  Havanna"  by 
doubling  the  western  capes  of  Cuba,  give  a 
thought  to  that  isthmus  or  promontory  which,  in 
by-gone  ages,  connected  Cuba  with  Yucatan  ? 
Yet  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the  penin 
sula  of  Yucatan  was  once  thus  united  to  "  the 
ever  faithful  isle."  But  when  and  how  they  were 
divorced,  are  problems  for  geologists. 

Just  as  the  Lord  of  Day  was  making  his 
preparations  £<to  quit  his  chamber  in  the  East," 
the  look-out  shouted,  "  Land  ho  I"  For  several 
hours  our  path  lay  along  the  coast  of  a  veritable 
paradise.  The  dwelling  houses  of  the  planters, 
painted  in  various  bright  colors,  shone  resplen 
dent  in  the  morning  sun-light,  and  I  fancied  that 
they  were  imitations  of  the  domestic  architecture 
of  the  Moors  of  Spain.  Then,  those  lofty  palm 
trees — how  finely  they  contrasted  with  the  pal- 
mettoes — those  bastard  palms — of  the  South  I 
But  I  will  not  attempt — what  so  many  others 
have  failed  to  do — to  convey  any  adequate  idea 
of  the  gorgeous  beauty  of  this  tropical  land 
scape.  It  was,  as  the  only  living  lady  on  board 
the  Mary  Sanford  repeatedly  said,  "  perfectly 
splendid  ;"  and  yet  I  would  not  exchange  the 
cranberry  of  New  England  for  any  product  of 
the  tropics. 

Havanna  has  been  many  times  described, 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       195 

and  I  found  it  pretty  much  as  others  have  found 
it,  save  that  its  harbor,  (which  is  shaped  exactly 
like  one  half  of  a  bisected  bottle  lying  with  the  cut 
side  upwards,)  contained  a  dozen  or  more  of 
those  long,  low,  rakish-looking  steamers,  with 
short  masts  and  convex-decks,  painted  lead  col 
or,  which  we  had  often  fired  at  during  the  long 
blockade. 

Walking  in  the  Plaza  di  Anna,  and  other 
squares  and  streets  of  Havanna,  I  seemed  to  be 
transported  to  the  times  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa 
bella,  and  of  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth.  On 
Sunday,  I  heard  a  sermon  in  sonorous  Spanish 
in  the  Cathedral ;  and  having  attended  three 
masses  in  the  morning,  I  followed  the  custom  of 
the  city,  and  witnessed  five  bull-fights  in  the 
afternoon.  To  my  taste,  these  combats  between 
armed  men  and  horses,  on  the  one  side,  and  in 
furiated  bulls,  on  the  other,  seemed  utterly  re 
volting.  But  custom  will  make  men  anything. 
Not  only  the  senors  but  the  fair  senoretas  also, 
went  wild  with  delight  when  the  poor  horses 
were  gored  and  disemboweled  by  the  maddened 
bulls,  or  when  the  poor  bull,  stung  almost  to 
death  by  torpedoes  in  his  flesh,  was  thrust  by  the 
fatal  lance,  and  fell  reeling  to  the  earth. 

It  was  with  great  reluctance  that  I  turned 
away  from  the  passeos  behind  Havanna,  of  which 


196       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

no  one  who  has  ever  driven  over  them  in  those 
grotesque  volantes  will  need  any  description, 
while  to  those  who  have  not  seen  them,  no  words 
of  mine  could  convey  any  adequate  conception 
of  their  marvellous  attractions  and  rich  tropical 
— I  might  say  magical — beauty.  They  are  to  Ha- 
vanna  all  and  more  than  all  that  the  Central  Park 
is  to  New  York  ;  and  nothing  save  the  Bois  de 
Bologne  of  Paris  could  excel  them  in  the  sights 
which  they  present  with  their  thousand  light  vo- 
lantes — the  wheels  at  one  end,  the  mounted 
steed  at  the  other,  and  the  stately,  bare-headed, 
white-robed  senoretas  sitting  serenely  between. 

The  courts  of  justice  in  Havanna  are  com 
modious  apartments,  elegantly  furnished,  and 
contrasted  finely  with  the  cabins  and  ward-rooms 
in  which  I  had  so  long  been  administering  jus 
tice  according  to  the  criminal  code  of  the  Navy. 
Some  of  them  displayed  full-length  portraits  of 
Queen  Isabella,  and  of  her  predecessors  on  the 
Spanish  throne. 

I  was  fortunate  in  making  the  acquaintance 

of  Senor ,  a  learned  advocate  who  had 

travelled  in  Europe  and  the  United  States.  He 
showed  me  an  old  book  which  he  had  picked  up 
in  Madrid,  entitled  De  Re  Militare  et  de  Belloy 
written  in  Latin,  by  Pierino  Bello,  in  1558,  and 
published  in  Venice  in  1563.  This  treatise  was 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       197 

the  first  effort  ever  made  to  reduce  the  practice 
of  nations  in  the  conduct  of  war  to  a  system  of 
judicial  rules.  Bello,  otherwise  called  Bellinus, 
was  a  native  of  Alba,  in  Piedmont,  and  was  Judge- 
Advocate  of  the  Army  of  the  Emperor  Charles 
the  Fifth  of  Germany  during  his  war  with  Fran 
cis  the  First  of  France  in  the  North  of  Italy,  and 
afterwards  Chancellor  of  War  and  of  State  to 
the  Emperor's  son,  Phillip  the  Second  of  Spain. 
He  was  born  in  1502,  and  died  in  1575,  and  was 
at  the  time  of  his  death  High  Chancellor  of  Sa 
voy.  His  work  served  as  a  guide  to  that  of 
Aibericus  Gen  til  is  de  Jure  Belli*  published 
forty  years  later,  and  also  to  the  great  work  of 
Grotius,  on  the  Rights  of  War  and  Peace,  in  1 62  5 . 

The  next  effort  of  this  kind  was  made  by 
Balthazar  Ayala,  the  Judge  -  Advocate  of  the 
Spanish  Army  in  the  Netherlands,  under  Alex 
ander  Farnese,  the  Prince  of  Parma,  to  whom 
the  work  was  dedicated  in  1581. 

The  third  was  made  by  Aibericus  Gentilis, 
in  1598,  while  teaching  at  Oxford,  and  dedicated 
to  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  the  favorite 
and  the  victim  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Judge-Advocate  Bellinus  was  the  true  Fa 
ther  of  International  Law  :  yet  in  the  works  of 

*See  Judge-Advocate-General  Twiss  on  Aibericus  Gen 
tilis,  in  London  Law  Magazine  and  Review,  Nov.  '77 — 
Feb.  '78. 


198       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Wheaton,  Kent,  Phillimore  and  Halleck,  he  is 
hardly  named.  Judge  -  Advocate  Ayala  fares 
little  better.  Grotius,  whose  own  services  ought 
to  secure  an  immortality  of  fame,  has  honors 
heaped  upon  him  unbidden,  which  justly  belong 
to  Bellinus  and  Ayala. 

From  the  days  of  Bellinus  and  Ayala  to  the 
days  of  Halleck,  Holt  and  Twiss,  the  Judges- 
Advocates  of  the  Armies  and  Navies  of  Europe 
and  America  have  not  failed  to  make  constant 
efforts,  by  their  writings,  as  well  as  by  their  prac 
tice,  to  improve  the  several  systems  of  law,  which, 
in  their  two-fold  character  as  Judges  and  as  Ad 
vocates,  they  have  been  called  to  administer. 

Here  also  I  saw  the  secret  memoirs  of  the 
Count  of  Aranda,  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
trusted  ministers  of  Charles  the  Third  of  Spain, 
printed  in  Spanish  a  few  years  before.  From 
these  memoirs  I  quote  the  following  remarkable 
letter,  written  by  him  in  confidence  to  his  sov 
ereign,  upon  signing  the  treaty  of  1783  : — 

"  I  have  just  concluded  and  signed  a  treaty  of 
peace  with  England,  and  this  negotiation  has  left 
in  my  mind  a  painful  sentiment.  We  have  recognized 
the  independence  of  the  English  colonies,  and  that  is 
to  me  a  subject  of  grief  and  of  dread.  France  has  few 
possessions  in  America;  but  she  ought  to  have  remem 
bered  that  Spain,  her  intimate  ally,  has  many,  which 
now  remain  exposed  to  terrible  convulsions.  I  will  not 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       1 99 

stop  to  examine  the  opinions  of  statesmen,  as  well 
countrymen  as  foreigners,  who  agree  with  me  in  esti 
mation  of  the  intrinsic  difficulty  of  preserving  our 
domination  in  America.  Without  entering  into  those 
considerations  it  suffices  to  content  myself  with  refer 
ring  to  the  perils  with  which  we  are  menaced,  on  the 
side  of  the  new  power  just  created  in  a  part  of  the 
earth  where  no  other  power  exists  capable  of  with 
standing  its  progress.  This  new  federal  republic  has 
come  into  being  a  pigmy,  so  to  speak,  and  in  order  to 
attain  its  independence  has  needed  the  support  and 
the  forces  of  two  great  powers,  France  and  Spain.  The 
day  is  at  hand  when  in  those  regions  it  will  be  a  giant 
— a  terrible  colossus.  Then  it  will  forget  the  benefits 
which  it  has  received  from  us,  and  will  think  only  of 
its  own  aggrandizement.  The  liberty  of  conscience, 
the  facility  of  establishing  new  populations  in  im 
mense  territories,  and  the  peculiar  advantages  held 
forth  by  the  new  government,  will  attract  thither  cul 
tivators  and  artizans  of  all  nations,  since  men  rush  in 
pursuit  of  fortune ;  and  thus,  in  a  few  years,  we  shall 
witness  with  sorrow  the  menacing  existence  of  the  an 
ticipated  colossus.  The  first  step  of  this  power,  when 
it  shall  have  grown  to  strength,  will  be  to  possess  it 
self  of  the  Floridas,  in  order  to  command  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  After  haying  thus  interposed  itself  in  the 
way  of  our  commerce  with  New  Spain,  it  will  aspire 
to  conquer  that  great  empire,  which  it  will  not  be  pos 
sible  to  defend  against  a  formidable  power,  establish 
ed  on  the  same  continent,  and  what  is  more,  coter- 


200       LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYEKS 

minous  with  it.  These  apprehensions  are  well  founded, 
and  cannot  fail  to  be  realized  within  a  few  years,  un 
less  indeed,  before  then,  revolutions  still  more  disas 
trous  should  break  forth  in  our  Americas." 

With  so  clear  a  view  of  the  future  of  the 
nascent  Union,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered,  that 
this  great  man  sought  to  ward  off  this  peril  from 
Spain  by  creating  semi-independent  monarchies 
out  of  the  Spanish  Colonies,  to  be  governed  by 
vassal  Spanish  princes  under  Charles  as  emperor 
of  Spain  and  the  Indies,  the  latter  retaining  the 
immediate  government  only  of  the  Islands  of 
Cuba  and  Puerto  Rico. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  England  "  bit  off 
her  own  nose"  in  extinguishing  the  French 
dream  of  domination  in  America  by  the  conquest 
of  Canada.  She  certainly  thereby  provoked 
France  to  incite  that  discontent  and  rebellion 
which  culminated  in  the  independence  of  the  Uni 
ted  States.  Spain,  also,  "bit  off  her  nose,"  by  Aid 
ing  the  revolted  Colonies.  So  thought  this  far- 
sighted  Count  of  Aranda,  whose  prophetic  words 
came  freshly  to  my  mind  as  I  pondered,  not  with 
out  hope,  on  the  prospect  that  Cuba  will  yet'be- 
come  a  member  of  the  American  Federal  Union. 
Had  the  counsels  of  Aranda  prevailed,  Span 
ish  America  might  have  been  spared  twenty  years 
of  anarchy  and  civil  war,  as  Portugese  America 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       20 1 

was  by  the  timely  adoption  of  the  same  wise 
policy. 

Whether  the  Count  of  Aranda  had  heard  of 
Governor  Pownall  of  Massachusetts,  I  know  not ; 
but  it  is  remarkable  that  Pownall  sought  to  an 
ticipate  the  independence  of  the  British  Ameri 
can  Colonies  by  making  them  members  of  a 
great  British  Federal  Union. 

This  Senor ,  I  may  say,  was  admir 
ably  fitted,  by  culture  and  tastes,  for  public  life  ; 
yet  under  the  despotic  system  of  Cuba,  there 
was  no  more  chance  for  a  political  career  for 
him,  than  there  would  be  in  some  of  the  Irish  or 
German  wards  of  Boston,  New  York,  St.  Louis, 
or  Cincinnati ;  and  perhaps  it  is  an  open  ques 
tion,  whether  the  rule  of  one  narrow-minded 
bigot  is  not  more  tolerable  than  that  of  a  mob  of 
narrow-minded  bigots. 

I  left  Havana  with  several  purposes  unful 
filled.  One  of  these  was  a  trip  to  the  Valley  of 
the  Yumuri,  immortalized  first  by  the  hand  of 
Nature,  and  again  by  the  pen  of  Maria  Brooks.* 

My  visit  was  one  of  uninterrupted  enjoy 
ment,  which  was  greatly  augmented  by  the  many 
attentions  of  Charles  Dudley  Tyng,  one  of  the 

*See  Maria  del  Occident,  in  Harper's  Magazine  for 
January,  1879. 


202       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Tyngs  of  Newburyport,  then  commercially  dom 
iciled  in  Havana. 

Some  of  the  last  of  the  blockade-runners 
lay  in  the  harbor  of  Havana  when  we  left ;  and 
one  of  our  officers,  with  a  turn  for  poetry,  adap 
ted  to  "  the  Last  Blockade  Runner  "  Lord  Ma- 
caulay's  lively  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Buccaneer." 
Had  the  noble  poet  lived  to  see  these  adapta 
tions,  I  fear  he  would  have  punished  the  adap 
tor  as  unsparingly  as  he  punished  Robert  Mont 
gomery  and  John  Wilson  Croker. 

I  had  received  from  Captain  John  S.  Sleeper, 
formerly  editor  of  the  Lowell  Journal^  and  after 
wards  of  the  Boston  Journal,  some  vivid  ac 
counts  of  the  pirates  who  infested  these  waters 
early  in  the  present  century.  *  I  had  also  read  of 
the  famous  buccaneers  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury  ;  but  never  till  I  visited  their  favorite  cruis- 
ing-ground,  did  I  realize  that  the  buccaneers 
were  the  natural  outcome  from  the  peculiar  cir 
cumstances  of  their  time.  Mr.  Froude  well  says  : 

"  The  privateers,  Spanish,  French,  English, 
Scotch,  and  Flemish,  who  in  time  of  war  learnt 
the  habits  of  plunder  under  a  show  of  legality, 
glided  by  an  easy  transition  into  buccaneers 

*See  the  admirable  paper  on  these  pirates,  read  by 
Captain  Sleeper  before  the  New  England  Historic,  Gen 
ealogical  Society  in  1877. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       203 

whenever  peace  withdrew  from  them  their  licen 
ces.  The  richness  of  the  possible  spoils,  the 
dash  and  adventure  in  the  mode  of  obtaining  it, 
and  the  doubtful  relations  of  the  courts  of  Eu 
rope  to  each  other,  which  made  the  services  of 
such  men  continually  valuable,  and  secured  them 
the  partial  connivance  of  their  respective  gov 
ernments  combined  to  disguise  the  infamy  of  a 
marauding  profession.  The  pirate  of  to-day  was 
the  patriot  of  to-morrow. "* 

In  a  few  hours  a  terrible  storm  came  on, 
and  before  we  were  aware  of  it  we  were  in  the 
paradise\>f  the  wreckers  on  the  coast  of  Florida. 
The  sea  ran  mountains  high,  the  wind  blew  tow 
ard  the  land,  and  for  hours  we  were  in  peril  of 
running  on  the  lee  shore. 

"  In  such  a  tempest,  borne  to  deeds  of  death, 
The  wild,  weird  sisters  scour  the  blasted  heath." 

At  length  the  storm  ceased  ;  and  having 
made  the  Gulf  stream,  that  remarkable  "  river  in 
the  ocean,"  we  were  soon  once  more  in  Charles 
ton.  There  I  soon  learned  that,  though  out  of 
sight,  I  had  not  been  out  of  mind  to  my  Charles 
ton  friends,  during  my  trip  to  the  tropics.  They 
had  been  holding  what  they  called  a  "  Union 
League  Mass  Convention,"  for  the  purpose, 

*Froude's  History  of  England,  vol.  5,  p.  135.     This 
was  equally  true  of  the  pirates  of  1800-1820. 


204      LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYER'S 

among  others,  of  recommending  some  one  to 
President  Johnson  for  the  office  of  Provisional 
Governor  of  South  Carolina ;  and  knowing  that  I 
was  about  to  quit  the  Navy,  they  had  voted  to 
recommend  me  for  that  position.  This  expres 
sion  of  confidence  on  their  part  was  most  grati 
fying  ;  though  I  was  not  conscious  of  any  special 
fitness  for  that  office.  In  fact  I  had  signed  a 
petition  for  B.  F.  Perry,  whom  the  President 
soon  after  appointed. 

Having  assisted  in  organizing  the  Republi 
can  party,  and  helping  it  into  power  in  the  Pal 
metto  State,  I  protest  that  I  am  wholly  innocent 
of  the  crimes  by  which  the  names  of  too  many 
of  the  Republican  leaders  were  afterwards 
"damned  to  everlasting  fame."  Not  a  hint  had 
yet  been  heard,  of  those  portentous  frauds  by 
which  that  once  -  glorious  commonwealth  was 
humbled  in  the  dust,  and  burdened  with  a  weight 
of  debt  which  will  retard  her  prosperity  for  gen 
erations  to  come. 

I  lingered  too  long  in  the  tropics  to  fulfil  a 
promise  to  my  friend,  Mr.  Redpath,  to  deliver  an 
address,  in  Charleston,  on  the  day  of  the  deco 
ration  of  the  graves  of  the  martyrs  of  the  Race- 
Course.  James  Redpath,  I  believe,  is  the  real 
originator  of  the  practice  of  publicly  decorating 
the  graves  of  the  men  who  died  in  our  military 


-LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       205 

or  naval  service  during  the  Civil  War.  His  col 
ored  clients  at  Charleston,  where  he  was  then 
Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  were  the 
first  decorators  ;  and  I  barely  escaped  the  honor 
of  giving  the  first  decoration-day  oration.  I  had 
made  some  preparation  for  that  most  welcome 
service ;  had  gathered  together  from  all  access 
ible  sources  the  history  of  the  Race-Course 
Prison,  and  also  of  the  Morris-Island  Stockade  ; 
(for  I  meant  to  treat  both  sides  with  equal  fair 
ness.)  Some  tribute  I  would  gladly  have  paid 
to  those  unnamed  heroes  who,  lingering  from 
week  to  week,  suffered  the  bitter  pains  of  ten 
thousand  deaths,  when  they  had  only  to  re 
nounce  their  allegiance  to  the  Union  in  order  to 
be  released. 

"  To  play  the  part  of  heroism  on  its  high 
places  and  in  its  theatre,"  as  Rufus  Choate  once 
said,  "  is  not  perhaps  so  very  difficult."  But  to 
play  it  continuously  for  months,  with  no  prospect 
of  relief,  unseen  by  any  sympathizing  human 
eye,  frowned  on  by  all  around  them,  save  their 
suffering,  starving  comrades,  was  the  sad  trial 
and  the  supreme  triumph  of  the  martyrs  of  the 
Race-Course. 

Nor  would  I  have  withheld  the  honors  due 
to  those  unnamed  heroines,  whose  backs  were 
scored  by  the  lash,  because  they  dared  to  visit 


206       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

our  prisoners  in  the  night,  and  carry  bread  to 
the  hungry,  bandages  to  the  wounded,  and  med 
icines  to  the  sick,  and  to  receive  the  last  messa 
ges  of  the  dying. 

The  Confederate  soldier  or  sailor,  who  hon 
estly  held  that  his  highest  allegiance  was  due  to 
his  own  state,  and  to  the  southern  Confederacy) 
and  who  in  that  faith  fought  the  forces  of  the 
Union  on  land  or  sea,  should  have  heard  no 
word  of  reproach  ;  nor  would  I  have  stung  his 
pride  by  calling  him  a  rebel  or  a  traitor.  But  to 
those  wretches  who  aggravated  the  asperities  of 
the  war  by  reviving  barbarities  which  even  sava 
ges  have  abandoned,  I  would  have  shown  no 
mercy.  Generally,  they  were  not  soldiers,  though 
they  had  donned  military  attire.  For  them  even 
the  bitter  words  of  Lord  Macaulay  were  too 
sweet : — 

"  Shame  on  those  cruel  eyes 
That  dared  to  look  on  torture, 
But  dared  not  look  on  war." 

The  time  now  came  for  the  reduction  of  the 
Navy  to  a  peace  basis,  and  for  the  union  of  the 
North  and  South  Atlantic  Squadrons  under  one 
commander.  At  the  end  of  June  I  accompanied 
Admiral  Dahlgren  to  the  capital  in  the  Pawnee. 
The  flag  of  the  South  Atlantic  Blockading  Squad 
ron,  which  Dupont  unfurled  at  Fortress  Munroe 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       207 

on  the  29th  of  October,  1861,  was  hauled  down 
by  Admiral  Dahlgren  at  Washington,  on  the  I2th 
day  of  July,  1865  ;  and  the  books  of  that  com 
mand  were  closed  forever. 

Previous  to  leaving  Charleston,  the  Admiral 
issued  two  farewell  orders,  in  one  of  which, 
among  other  things,  he  pays  his  compliments  to 
each  officer  of  his  staff  by  name ;  while  in  the 
other  he  traces  with  rapid  strokes  the  history  of 
the  squadron  during  the  two  years  of  his  com 
mand.* 

I  cannot  allow  the  beloved  and  honored 
name  of  Dahlgren  to  drop  from  my  narrative 
without  making,  at  least,  this  attestation : — that 
a  more  intrepid  spirit  never  walked  this  earth  in 
human  form  ;  that  his  steadfast  soul  knew  no 
such  thing  as  fear  ;f  that  his  constant,  utmost, 
only  aim  was  to  render  to  his  country  the  great 
est  and  best  service  possible  ;  that,  alike  in  fight 
ing  and  in  forbearing  to  fight,  he  never  hesitated 
to  sacrifice  himself,  his  fame,  and  his  hope  of 

*See  Secretary  Welles'  Report  for  1865,  pp.  343-346. 

t  Witness  the  sublime  daring  with  which  Jhe  pushed 
off  in  his  barge,  and  pulled  through  a  heavy  sea  and  a  tre 
mendous  fire  of  shells  to  the  Passaic,  when  that  renowned 
little  turtle-back  got  aground  under  Fort  Moultrie,  and 
when  none  but  the  utmost  efforts  of  all  her  consorts  could 
have  saved  her  from  destruction  or  what  was  infinitely 
worse — capture. 


208       LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

higher  fame,  for  the  good  of  his  country  ;  that  in 
his  private  relations  with  me,  (which  were  as  in 
timate  and  as  confidential  as  those  with  any  other 
officer  of  his  personal  staff,)  I  found  him  always 
kind,  generous,  frank,  cordial,  sympathetic  and 
confiding  ;  and  that  I  never  met  one  who  meri 
ted  "  the  grand  old  name  of  Gentleman  "  more 
than  he.  Much  more  I  would  add,  especially 
concerning  him  as  a  man  of  science,  and  the  in 
ventor  of  the  best  forms  of  ordnance,  but  for 
the  fact  that  his  biography  is  now  in  preparation 
by  able  and  loving  hands  ;  so  that  no  further 
account  of  him  is  needed. 

It  is,  however,  worthy  of  mention  here,  that 
he  obtained  the  idea  of  the  formation  of  his  un 
rivalled  gun  from  observing  the  formation  of  the 
soda-water  bottle.  This  he  told  me  himself;  and 
a  moment's  inspection  will  demonstrate  that,  in 
the  bottle  as  in  his  gun,  the  weight  of  metal  is 
thrown  into  the  breech. 

I  can  indulge  no  better  hope  for  our  Amer 
ican  Navy,  than  that,  in  all  the  ages  of  its  future, 
it  may  never  want  officers  to  improve  its  gun 
nery  and  to  command  its  squadrons,  who  shall 
be  equal  to  the  ingenious,  the  intrepid,  the  chiv 
alrous,  the  high-souled  Dahlgren. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Courts-Martial  and  Civil  Courts  compared — 
Some  Points  in  Military  and  Naval  Law — Unity  in 
the  Methods  of  Procedure  in  the  two  Services. 

I  have  often  been  asked,  since  my  return  to 
civil  life,  what  are  the  advantages,  or  the  disad 
vantages,  of  courts-martial  as  agencies  for  ad 
ministering  criminal  justice.  The  advantages 
are :  first,  greater  freedom  from  technicality  in 
describing  the  accused  and  the  time,  place  and 
manner  of  the  offence  ;*  second,  greater  certainty 
that  the  tribunal  which  passes  upon  the  facts, 
(/".  e.  the  court  sitting  as  a  jury,)  will  possess  the 
requisite  special  knowledge,  in  cases  requiring 
special  knowledge ;  third,  the  evidence  is  pre 
served  entire  for  the  examination  of  the  review 
ing  power.  Often,  when  cheated  out  of  "  excep 
tions  to  rulings  at  nisi  prius"  by  slippery  judges 

•*The  Cilley  case,  however,  in  the  S.  A.  B.  Squadron, 
in  1863,  and  some  others,  broke  down  for  want  of  suffi 
cient  allegations  as  to  the  place  of  the  alleged  offence. 


210      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

who  would  substitute  their  after-thoughts  for 
rulings  suddenly  and  inconsiderately  made,  I 
have  sighed  for  the  full  record  of  the  court-mar 
tial,  made  at  the  moment,  and  like  "  the  law  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians,  which  altereth  not." 

The  disadvantages  are,  the  proneness  of 
courts-martial  to  convict  in  cases  of  doubt ;  the 
exclusion  of  all  oral  examination  and  cross-ex 
amination  of  witnesses ;  the  depriving  the  ac 
cused  of  the  advantages  that  are  often  secured, 
in  civil  courts,  by  the  power  of  forensic  elo 
quence.  But  I  have  seen  juries  more  alarmingly, 
— ay,  scandalously, — prone  to  convict  than  any 
court-martial  with  which  I  ever  sat  as  judge- 
advocate,  or  before  which  I  have  ever  appeared 
as  counsel  for  the  accused.  The  boasted  advan 
tages  of  cross-examining  witnesses  viva  voce,  of 
firing  into  them  rattling  vollies  of  confusing 
questions,  and  of  badgering  them  into  apparent 
contradictions,  have  been  much  over-estimated 
by  such  lawyers  as  Lord  Erskine*  and  Lord 
Abinger  in  Great  Britain,  and  by  Judge  Lord, 
Charles  O'Conor,  General  Butler,  and  Judge 
Fullerton  in  the  United  States.  Such,  I  know, 

*Erskine,  by  the  way,  was  as  successful  before  naval 
general  courts-martial  composed  of  British  officers,  as  be 
fore  "the  Twelve"  in  courts  of  common  law.  Witness 
his  defence  of  Admiral  Keppel. 


LIFE  AFL OA  T  AND  ASHORE.       2 1 1 

was  the  mature  opinion  of  Charles  Sumner  ;  and 
it  was  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  trial  of  Tilton 
v.  Beecher,  in  which  Mrs.  Moulton,  on  the  one 
side,  and  Miss  Turner,  on  the  other,  successfully 
withstood  the  best  efforts  of  Mr.  Evarts,  and  Mr, 
Fullerton,  respectively,  to  break  the  force  of 
their  testimony  by  the  tactics  of  a  most  skillful 
cross-examination.  The  triumph  of  Mrs.  Jenks 
over  Mr.  Butler,  when  cross-examined  before  the 
famous  Potter  Committee,  was  even  more  re 
markable  than  that  of  Mrs.  Moulton  over  Mr. 
Evarts,  or  of  Miss  Turner  over  Mr.  Fullerton. 
A  cross-examination  is  very  often  more  damag 
ing  to  the  cross-examiner  than  to  his  adversary. 
The  acquittal  of  Sickles,  one  of  the  most  bril 
liant  forensic  victories  of  modern  times,  was 
largely  due  to  the  adroit  abstention  of  Mr.  Brady 
from  any  cross-examination  save  what  related 
strictly  to  the  testimony-in-chief.  Like  the  di 
vine  gift  of  eloquence,  it  is  often  perverted  to 
purposes  of  injustice — "  to  put  a  face  of  truth 
upon  a  body  of  falsehood  " — rather  than  "to  exe 
cute  justice  and  to  maintain  truth." 

Referring  to  the  judge-advocate,  who  com 
bines  the  functions  of  a  judge  with  those  af  an 
advocate,  Charles  Sumner  says  : — "As  a  judge, 
conversant  with  the  law  and  the  practice  of 
courts,  he  is  to  advise  the  members  on  such 


212      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

& 

questions  of  law  as  the  case  presents,  and  to  be 
of  counsel  for  the  prisoner,  according  to  judicial 
custom,  when  the  prisoner  was  not  allowed 
counsel  in  his  defence.  At  the  same  time,  he 
is  to  be  the  prosecuting  officer  for  the  govern 
ment,  and  withal,  the  recorder  of  the  court. 
The  military  (or  naval)  officers  become  a  jury, 
with  power  to  decide  the  law  and  the  fact,  and 
to  assign  due  punishment  on  conviction.  The 
judge-advocate  is  in  truth  the  judge  ;  and,  as  in 
these  trials,  anciently,  no  counsel  was  allowed 
the  prisoner,  the  judge-advocate  might  without 
any  great  difficulty  see  to  the  proper  manage 
ment  both  of  the  prosecution  and  defence.*" 

In  some  respects,  the  practice  of  courts- 
martial  might  be  improved.  In  an  age  of  expert 
stenographers,  like  ours,  the  time  of  the  whole 
court  ought  not  to  be  wasted,  as  it  now  is,  while 
the  testimony  is  written  out  in  full  in  long-hand. 
The  report  of  a  sworn  stenographer,  verified,  of 
course,  daily,  by  the  court,  would  be  full  as  trust 
worthy  as  the  long-hand  minutes  of  a  judge- 
advocate. 

The  Bar,  too,  should  have  a  recognized  po 
sition.  In  dealing  with  counsel,  courts-martial 

*6  Law  Reporter,  p.  5.  See  also  Mr.  Simmer's  learn 
ed  article  on  the  Mutiny  of  the  Somers,  North  American 
Review,  vol.  57,  pp.  195-241. 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       2 1 3 

now  stand  about  where  the  courts  of  Athens 
stood  two  thousand  years  ago. 

The  practice  of  military  courts  and  that  of 
naval  courts  are  nearly  alike  already,  (naturally 
and  necessarily  so,)  and  they  might  be  made 
entirely  uniform.  The  statutes  which  govern 
their  proceedings  require  but  the  slightest  chan 
ges  to  make  the  practice  of  courts  in  the  two 
services  entirely  Uike  ;  and  while  there  is  much 
to  be  said  for  uniformity,  the  points  of  difference 
are  such  that  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  be 
said  against  it. 

Why,  for  example,  should  the  law  require 
that  the  judge-advocate  of  a  naval  general  court- 
martial  should  be  sworn  before  he  administers 
the  oath  to  tbe  members,  and  that  the  judge- 
advocate  of  a  military  general  court-martial,  and 
the  judge-advocate,  (or  recorder,)  of  every  other 
judicial  tribunal  in  either  service,  should  admin 
ister  the  oath  of  office  to  the  members  of  the 
court  before  he  has  been  sworn  himself?*  Why 
not  make  the  practice  uniform  in  all  courts  of 
both  services  ? 

Again :  why  should  the  law  prescribe  that 
the  president  or  senior  member  shall  administer 
the  oath  to  witnesses  before  naval  general,  and 

^Revised  Statutes  of  the  United  States,  Title  XIV., 
Chap.  5,  Articles  84,  85, 117 ;— Chap.  10,  Articles  28,  40,  58. 


214       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

summary,  courts-martial,  and  yet  permit  wit 
nesses  before  all  other  tribunals  in  either  service 
to  be  sworn  by  the  judge-advocate  ?  Why  not 
permit  them  to  be  sworn  by  either  the  president 
or  the  judge-advocate,  in  all  cases  ?  These  ques 
tions  are  important ;  for  if  an  oath  is  adminis 
tered  by  one  who  is  not,  at  the  time,  qualified  to 
administer  it,  it  is  extrajudicial,  and  the  violation 
of  it  is  not  legal  perjury. 

By  a  singular  inadvertence,  the  oaths  pre 
scribed  for  judges-advocates  and  members  of 
naval  general  courts-martial  and  naval  courts  of 
inquiry,  and  for  the  recorders  and  members  of 
summary  courts-martial,  do  not  contain  the  form 
ula,  "  So  help  you  God,"  or  any  other  words 
equivalent  thereto  ;  though  this  is  of  the  essence 
of  all  oaths. 

In  dealing  with  cases  of  theft,  under  the 
seventh  and  eighth  articles  of  war,*  our  naval 
general  courts-martial  often  found  it  impossible 
to  impose  a  penalty  adequate  to  the  offence.  By 
the  construction  which  the  Navy  Department 
has  put  upon  these  articles  ever  since  their  en 
actment,  it  is  only  in  cases  "  where  it  is  author 
ised  to  adjudge  the  punishment  of  death,"  that 

*In  Dynes  v.  Hoover,  20  Howard,  81,  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  put  a  different  construction  on  these  arti 
cles,  less  favorable  to  the  accused. 


'  LIFE  AFL  OAT  AND  A  SHORE.       2 1 5 

a  court-martial  may  adjudge  the  punishment  of 
imprisonment  for  life,  or  for  a  stated  term,  at 
hard  labor. 

It  must  be  considered  here  that  the  punish 
ments  imposed  by  courts-martial  are  additional 
to  those  imposed  by  the  civil  tribunals.*  It  was 
not  foreseen  that  a  time  would  come  when  crimes 
would  be  committed  within  any  state  in  the 
American  Union,  when  there  would  be  no  civil 
court  therein  in  which  the  offender  could  be 
prosecuted.  To  remedy  this  mischief,  several 
courts-martial  sought  to  impose  confinement  at 
hard  labor  in  a  penitentiary  as  a  punishment 
for  theft ;  but  the  Department  set  aside  all  such 
sentences  as  unauthorized  and  void. 

The  Department  was  manifestly  right.  If 
it  were  otherwise,  a  man  might  be  sent  twice  to 
a  penitentiary  for  the  same  offence — once  by  a 
civil  court,  and  again  by  a  court-martial.  The 
authority  of  Dynes  v.  Hoover  is  without  weight 

*It  seems  that  Judge  Woodbury,  Chancellor  Kent, 
Judge  Betts,  and  Charles  Sumner,  eminent  as  they  were, 
all  erred  in  supposing  crimes  cognizable  by  a  naval  gen 
eral  court-martial  as  violations  of  the  law  of  the  sea,  were 
not  cognizable  also  by  the  civil  courts  as  violations  of  the 
law  of  the  land.  See  the  decision  of  the  United  States  Su 
preme  Court  in  Moore  v.  State  of  Illinois  14  Howard,  13  ; 
Caleb  Cushing's  opinion  in  Steiner's  Case,  6  Opinions  of 
Attorneys-General,  413,  and  cases  there  cited;  Charles 
Sumner  on  the  Case  of  the  Somers,  6  Law  Reporter,  4. 


216       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

as  to  this.  But  as  no  such  sentence  as  was  in 
flicted  on  Dynes  will  probably  ever  be  approved 
again,  it  may  stand  for  ages  without  being  over 
ruled.  And  as  few  writers  in  this  country  know 
or  care  much  about  military  or  naval  law,  this 
case  may  pass  for  ages  unchallenged. 

While  the  late  Caleb  Gushing  was  one  of 
the  Commissioners  to  revise  the  statutes,  I  pre 
pared,  at  his  suggestion,  a  schedule  of  amend 
ments  whereby  all  these  minor  differences  would 
have  been  removed,  and  the  practice  of  all  courts 
in  the  Army  and  Navy  made  uniform.  He  as 
sured  me  that  they  were  all  desirable,  wondered 
they  had  not  been  suggested  sooner,  filed  my 
schedule  carefully  away,  and — probably  never 
looked  at  it  again. 

Mr.  Sumner's  suggestion, — that  "there  be 
an  individual  learned  in  the  law,  controlling,  as 
a  judge,  the  legal  course  of  the  trial," — would 
reduce  the  court  to  substantially  the  position  of 
modern  juries,  who  are  judges  of  facts  but  not 
judges  of  laws.  The  biases  of  the  Army  and 
Navy  lead  them  to  prefer  that  their  courts  should 
retain  the  position  of  the  ancient  juries  who,  in 
criminal  cases,  were — as  the  ballad  ran — 
"  Judges  alike  of  the  facts  and  the  laws." 


CHAPTER  XL 

From  the  Palmetto  State  to  the  Old  Bay  State— 
Researches  in  the  History  of  Divorces  and  Divorce 
Legislation  in  America — An  Unwritten  Chapter  in 
Our  Colonial  Life. 

Few  commonwealths  have  ever  presented  a 
more  pitiable  spectacle  than  the  Palmetto  State 
at  the  close  of  1865,  when  I  disposed  of  my  plan 
tation  and  returned  North.  A  large  portion  of 
her  white  male  population  had  perished  in  the 
war ;  another  portion  had  become  demoralized. 
Hundreds  of  families,  previously  wealthy,  or  well 
to-do,  had  been  impoverished.  Disaster,  debt 
and  ruin  were  everywhere.  The  population,  how 
ever,  inheriting  the  blood  of  English  Cavaliers, 
Scottish  Covenanters,  and  French  Huguenots, 
had  immense  recuperative  power;  and  she  might 
have  been  spared  that  other  later  and  sadder 
chapter  of  calamities,  had  the  remnant  of  her 
old  white  population  done  their  duty.  The  ig 
norance  of  the  horde  of  blacks,  who  were  sud- 


218       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

% 

denly  invested  with  political  power,  might  have 
been  largely  prevented  from  working  further 
ruin,  had  the  whites,  who  had  owned  them,  ac 
cepted  the  situation,  and  exercised  over  the 
freedmen  the  influence  which  men  of  culture  and 
property  can  always  exert  over  the  ignorant,  the 
poor,  and  the  depressed.  But  in  this  crisis,  when 
their  moral,  their  intellectual,  and  their  social  in 
fluences  were  more  needed  than  ever  before,  the 
old  white  population  chose,  blindly  and  madly, 
to  abandon  their  state  to  its  fate,  and  to  sit  down 
sullenly,  like  Achilles  sulking  in  his  tent.  The 
result  was,  that'the  rapacity  of  the  Northern  im 
migrants  combined  with  the  ignorance  of  the 
blacks,  and  reduced  South  Carolina  to  the  con 
dition  which  Mr.  Pike  has  so  well  portrayed  in 
his  "  Prostrate  State/' 

Unquestionably,  the  Civil  War  brought  great 
and  wide-spread  demoralization,  as  most  wars 
do.  All  our  historians,  from  Ramsay  to  Greeley, 
concur  that  the  moral  condition  of  the  people 
sadly  degenerated  during  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lutian,  and  during  the  War  of  1 8 1 2.  Returning  to 
Massachusetts,  I  have  been  witness  to  schemes 
of  corruption  only  less  heinous  than  those  which 
blacken  the  history  of  South  Carolina  ;  of  which 
those  incident  to  the  Hoosac  Tunnel  and  the 
Hartford  and  Erie  Railroad  may  be  mentioned  as 
striking  Examples. 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       2 1 9 

It  happened  that,  after  returning  to  Massa 
chusetts,  and  entering  upon  the  practice  of  my 
profession  in  Boston,  I  was  retained  in  numer 
ous  cases  of  domestic  litigation.  This  led  me  to 
inquire  when,  where,  and  how,  the  courts  of  the 
United  States,  (or  the  Colonies,)  first  began  to 
exercise  jurisdiction  in  cases  of  divorce. 

The  establishment  of  the  first  judicial  tri 
bunal  in  America,  exercising  jurisdiction  in 
matters  of  divorce,  would  seem  to  deserve  a 
a  place  in  history.  But  I  soon  found  that  this 
event,  which  took  place  in  1639,  had  never  been 
recorded  with  anything  like  accuracy  by  any 
writer  whatever. 

Supremely  important  and  far-reaching  in 
their  influence,  as  were  the  early  divorce  laws  of 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut, 
I  found  that  they  had  generally  been  entirely 
overlooked  by  the  historians  of  those  times. 

Only  one  of  those  historians  who  have 
taken  New  England  for  their  field, — Mr.  Palfrey, 
— and  only  one  of  the  historians  of  the  United 
States, — Mr.  Bancroft, — have  referred  to  the 
matter  at  all.  In  his  account  of  the  early  courts 
of  judicature  in  Massachusetts,  Palfrey  says,  the 
inferior  courts  "had  jurisdiction  in  cases  of  di 
vorce  ;"  which  is  not  true.  In  the  tenth  chap 
ter  of  Jiis  history,  treating  on  the  condition  of 


220      LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

the  United  Colonies  of  New  England,  Mr. 
Bancroft  says:  "Of  divorce  I  have  found  no 
example."  But  the  original  records  of  the 
colonial  court  of  assistants  contain  several 
such  examples  in  Massachusetts.  There  were 
others  in  Rhode  Island,  and  also  in  Connecticut. 

Of  the  historians  of  Massachusetts,  Hutch- 
inson  alone  mentions  the  subject  of  divorce  ; 
but  from  his  narrative,  which  is  generally  so  full 
and  so  particular,  it  is  impossible  to  say,  within 
fifty  years,  when  this  jurisdiction  was  first  ex 
ercised. 

Daniel  Webster  wisely  said  : — 

"There  are  two  sources  of  information  on 
these  subjects,  which  have  never  yet  been  fully 
explored,  and  which,  nevertheless,  are  overflow 
ing  fountains  of  knowledge.  I  mean  the  Stat 
utes,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  Courts  of  Law. 
At  an  early  period  of  life,  I  recurred,  with  some 
degree  of  attention,  to  both  these  sources  of  in 
formation  ;  not  so  much  for  professional  purposes 
as  for  the  elucidation  of  the  progress  of  Society. 
I  acquainted  myself  with  the  object,  and  pur 
poses,  and  substance  of  every  published  Statute 
in  British  Legislation.  These  showed  me  what 
the  Legislature  of  the  country  was  concerned 
in,  from  time  to  time,  and  from  year  to  year. 
And  I  learned  from  the  Reports  of  controver- 


LIFE  AFL  OA  T  AND  A  SHORE.       2  2 1 

sies,  in  the  Courts  of  Law,  what  were  the  per- 
suits  and  occupations  of  individuals,  and  what 
the  objects  which  most  earnestly  engaged  atten 
tion.  I  hardly  know  anything  which  more 
repays  research  than  studies  of  this  kind."* 

The  first  act  expressly  or  tacitly  authorizing 
the  dissolution  of  marriage  by  judicial  decree, 
in  any  dependency  of  the  English  Crown, 
was  passed  by  the  general  court  of  Massachu 
setts  in  1639,  and  reenacted  in  1658,  in  an  im 
proved  form,  as  follows  : — 

"That  there  be  two  courts  of  assistants 
yearly  kept  at  Boston,  by  the  governor,  or  depu 
ty  governor,  and  the  rest  of  the  magistrates,  on 
the  first  Tuesday  of  the  first  month,  [March,] 
and  on  the  first  Tuesday  of  the  seventh  month, 
[September,]  to  hear  and  determine  all  and  only 
actions  of  appeal  from  inferior  courts,  all  causes 
of  divorce,  all  capital  and  criminal  causes,  ex 
tending  to  life,  member,  or  banishment."f 

The  first  decree  of  divorce  under  this  act 
was  that  of  one  James  Luxford  of  Boston.  It 

*Address  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 

t Compare  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  vol  1,  p. 
276,  with  Charters  and  General  Laws  of  the  Colony  and 
Province,  edition  of  1814,  p.  90,  and  the  advertisement. 
In  the  editions  of  the  Colony  laws  printed  in  1658  and  1660, 
(now  extremely  rare,)  the  act  above  cited  is  found  on 
page  23.  The  same  act  is. reprinted  on  page  36  of  the 
edition  of  1672,  in  which  President  Woolsey  erroneously 
says  "there  is  no  mention  made  of  divorce." 


222       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

was  entered  in  1639,  and  is  recorded  in  the  first 
volume  of  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  283. 

Neither  Bancroft,  nor  Palfrey,  nor  Barry, 
nor  even  Washburn,  who  has  preserved  so  many 
interesting  facts  in  his  Judicial  History  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  seems  ever  to  have  seen  the  volume 
of  records  of  the  court  of  assistants,'-'  from 
March  3,  1678,  to  March  23,  1691-1692,  in  the 
office  of  the  Clerk  of  the  Supreme  Judicial 
Court  for  the  Commonwealth,  in  Boston. 

I  presume  that  Governor  Hutchinson,  who 
wrote  in  1767,  had  seen  the  records  preserved 
in  this  volume,  as  well  as  those  which  are  lost, 
and  doubtless  had  them  in  mind  when  he 
said, — "I  never  heard  of  a  separation,  under  the 
first  charter,  a  mensa  et  thoro.  Where  it  is 
practiced,  the  innocent  party  often  suffers  more 
than  the  guilty.  In  general,  what  would  have 
been  cause  for  such  a  separation  in  the  spiritual 
courts,  was  sufficient,  with  them,  for  a  divorce 
a  vinculo."^ 

*Dr.  Ellis  has  objected  to  Hawthorne's  great  romance 
of  The  Scarlet  Letter,  that  nothing  in  the  history  of  the 
Colony  justified  him  in  portraying  Hester  Prynne  wear 
ing  the  letter  A  upon  her  breast  as  a  badge  of  infamy. 
But  in  this  volume  we  find  Ruth  Reed  condemned  to 
stand  in  the  market-place  in  Boston,  and  to  wear  an  ad 
vertisement  tenfold  worse  than  that  of  Hawthorne's 
heroine.  This  was  in  March,  1673.  From  1640  to  1673, 
the  records  of  this  court  are  lost. 

fHutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  1,  p.  393. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       223 

How  Mr.  Bancroft  could  overlook  the  dis 
tinction  between  separations  from  bed  and 
board  and  divorces  from  the  bond  of  matrimony 

—  or,  how  he  could  infer  from  this  passage   that 
absolute   divorces  were  unknown  here  —  I  can 
not  understand  :  yet  it  was  probably  this  passage 
in  Hutchinson  which  suggested  the  following  in 
Bancroft  :  —  "Of  divorce  I  have  found  no  exam 
ple  ;  yet  a  clause  in  one  of  the    statutes    recog 
nizes  the  possibility  of  such  an  event.     Divorce 
from  bed  and  board,  the  separate    maintenance 
without  the  dissolution  of  the  marriage  contract, 

—  an    anomaly    in    Protestant    legislation,    that 
punishes  the  innocent  more  than    the    guilty,  — 
was  abhorrent   from  their  principles."* 

In  the  docket  of  the  Massachusetts  court 
of  assistants,  to  which  I  have  referred,  eighteen 
cases  are  recorded  without  regard  to  formality.f 

One  of  the  first  acts  passed  by  the  general 
court  of  Massachusetts,  under  the  Province 


a  fuller  exposure  of  errors  in  Bancroft's  His 
tory  of  the  United  States,  Centenary  Edition,  vol.  1,  p. 
374;  Palfrey's  History  of  New  England,  vol.  2,  p.  17; 
Arnold's  History  of  Rhode  Island,  vol.  2,  p.  175  ;  Wool- 
sey's  Essay  on  Divorce  and  Divorce  .Legislation,  p.  183; 
and  in  The  New-Englander,  for  July,  1868,  p.  438  ;—  see 
the  author's  pamphlet  entitled  "Our  Divorce  Courts  &c." 
fThe  pamphlet,  entitled  "  Our  Divorce  Courts  "  &c., 
contains  an  account  of  all  these  cases,  and  also  of  the 
early  New  York,  llhode  Island  and  Connecticut  cases. 


224       LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYERS 

Charter  of  1692,  provided  that  "all  controversies 
concerning  marriage  and  divorce  shall  be  heard 
and  determined  by  the  Governor  and  Council." 
Under  this  law  divorces  continued  to  be  granted 
from  year  to  year  until  the  Revolution.'-'  Will 
iam  and  Mary  were  on  the  throne  when  this  act 
was  allowed.  Archbishop  Tenison  was  then 
Primate,  and  Lord  Chancellor  Somers,  (one 
of  Lord  Macaulay's  heroes,)  was  President  of 
the  Council. 

The  Colony  of  New  Haven  was  almost  as 
unfortunate  as  Massachusetts  Bay  in  respect  to 
her  records.  From  April,  1644,  to  May,  1653, 
these  records  are  lost.  I  have  had  no  access  to 
the  dockets  of  the  early  courts  of  Connecticut, 
but  in  Trumbull's  Public  Records  of  that  Col 
ony  I  find  eleven  divorces. if 

While  the  Colony  of  New  York  was  held 
by  the  Dutch,  the  liberal  divorce  laws  of  Hol 
land,  of  course,  prevailed  ;  and  an  examination 
of  the  dockets  of  her  courts  during  that  period 
may  yield  as  many  cases  of  this  class  as  these 
early  Massachusetts  records. 

*See  the  cases  in  Cowley's  Famous  Divorces  of  All 
Ages,  pp.  271-275.  This  law,  however,  did  not  prevent 
the  general  court  itself  from  granting  divorces,  as  the 
records  of  the  Province  in  several  cases  attest. 

^Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Trumbull.  vol.  1,  pp. 
275,  301,  363,  379 ;  vol.  2,  pp.  129,  292,  293,  322,  326,  327, 
328 ;  vol.  3,  p.  23 ;  vol.  4,  p.  59. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       225 

The  "  Historical  Manuscripts  "  in  the  office 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  at  Albany,  endorsed 
"1630—  1664:  Dutch  :  Part  i,"  contain,  at  least, 
three  cases  ;*  and  the  records  of  the  Patroons' 
courts  may  contain  others. 

For  the  period  between  the  English  con 
quest  of  that  colony  and  the  Revolution  of  1776 
the  Historical  Manuscripts  in  the  same  office, 
endorsed  ''English  Documents:  1664-1776," 
contain  evidence  of  curious  interest.^ 

Among  the  circumstances  which  combined 
to  render  the  practice  of  divorce  acceptable, 
were— the  general  rejection  of  the  sacramental 
view  of  marriage  ;  the  solemnization  of  marria 
ges  by  civil  magistrates  rather  than  by  clergy 
men  ;  the  frequent  coming  to  the  Colonies  of 
men  who  had  "  left  their  wives  at  home ;"  the 
great  practical  difficulty  of  living  here  and  car 
rying  on  agricultural  pursuits  without  wives,  and 
the  necessity  of  affording  to  enterprizing  men 
and  worthy  women  an  opportunity  to  reconstruct 
their  domestic  relations,  and  take  a  new  depart 
ure  on  the  voyage  of  life. 

*Vol.  6,  p.  49 ;  vol.  8,  pp.  415,  417,  419. 

fSce  vol.  23,  pp.  269,  390 ;  vol.  25,  pp.  84,  85.  Presi 
dent  Woolsey's  Essay,  (p.  190,)  requires  correction,  as  to 
both  the  Dutch  and  the  English  periods. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Law  of  Privilege  in  Civil  Courts  and  Courts- 
Martial — Commander  Seely's  Trial — Brief  for  the 
Accused. 

There  have  been  few  leaves  in  my  life  as 
a  Massachusetts  lawyer,  which  would  natur 
ally  find  a  place  in  the  same  volume  with  my  na 
val  reminiscences.  As  counsel  for  the  Grand 
Lodge  of  St.  Crispin,  I  had  the  satisfaction  to 
contend  with  success  for  their  right  to  a  place 
among  the  corporate  bodies  of  the  State, *  as 
well  as  their  right  to  collect  debts  by  legal  pro 
cess,  in  spite  of  the  cry  that  it  was  against  pub 
lic  policy.  With  still  greater  satisfaction  do  I 
recall  the  part  I  have  taken  in  restricting,  by 
penal  law,  the  hours  of  labor  of  women  and  chil 
dren  in  the  factories  to  ten  hours  a  day.  Massa 
chusetts,  which  is  generally  so  forward  in  meas- 

*See  Act  to  incorporate  the  Massachusetts  Grand 
Lodge  of  the  Knights  of  St.  Crispin,  chapter  281  of  the 
Acts  of  1870.  Snow  et  al.  v.  Wheeler  et  al.,  113  Mass.  179. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       227 

ures  of  reform,  was  many  years  behind  England 
in  the  passage  of  this  beneficent  law ; — but  she 
is  now  moving  to  secure  similar  enactments  in 
other  States.*  Other  just  and  beneficent  meas 
ures,  I  have  labored  for,  with  no  barren  result ; 
but  I  will  make  no  further  note^of  them  here. 

I  shall  close  this  volume  with  a  brief  record 
of  two  cases,  in  which  I  have  been  personally 
concerned  ; — one  involving  the  law  of  Privilege, 
applicable  alike  to  civil  courts  and  to  courts- 
martial  ; — the  other  a  trial  by  a  Naval  General 
Court-Martial. 

In  preparing  for  the  argument  of  the  ques 
tion  of  privilege,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that,  in 
stead  of  having  been  elucidated  by  the  decisions 
of  the  courts  in  which  it  has  so  often  arisen,  it 
has  been  reduced  to  an  almost  unintelligible  jar 
gon  by  the  conflicting  crotchets  of  different 
judges.  As  the  result  of  my  inquiries,  I  submit 
the  following  four  propositions  as  a  correct  defi 
nition  of  the  law  of  privilege 

i.  Where  an  advocate,  a  party,  or  a  witness, 
is  charged  with  false  and  defamatory  utterances 

*See  Act  to  regulate  the  Hours  of  Labor  in  Manufac 
turing  Establishments,  chapter  221  of  the  Acts  of  1874, 
amended  by  chap.  207  of  the  Acts  of  1879.  See,  also,  chap. 
37  of  the  Resolves  of  1879. 

For  a  striking  illustration  of  the  abuses  which  were 
formerly  tolerated,  see  Cowley's  Reminiscences  of  James 
C.  Ayer,  pp.  14-16. 


228      LEA  VES  FROM  A  LA  WYEKS 

in  the  course  of  judicial  proceedings ;  if  the 
words  used  were  pertinent  to  the  matter  in  is 
sue,  and  were  uttered  without  the  knowledge,  or 
the  belief,  that  they  were  false,  they  are  privil 
eged.  Revis  v.  Smith,  18  Common  Bench,  126. 
Henderson  v.  Broomhead,  4  Hurlston  &  Nor 
man,  569. 

2.  Where  defamatory  utterances  are  made 
in  good  faith,  in  the  belief  that  they  are  per 
tinent,  and  in  the  belief  that  they  are  true,  they 
are  privileged  ;  although  in  fact  they  are  not 
pertinent  to  the  matter  in  issue,  and  although 
in  fact  they  are  not  true.  And  if  not  so  made, 
they  are  actionable.  Watson  v.  Mower  i  r  Ver 
mont  542,  cited  and  approved  in  Hoar  v.  Wood, 
3  Metcalf,  193.  Kidder  v.  Parkhurst,  3  Allen, 
393.  Newfield  v.  Cofferman,  15  Abbott,  Pr.  N. 
S.  360.  White  v.  Carol,  42  N.  Y.,  161.  White 
v.  Nicholls,  3  Howard  U.  S.  267.  Seaman  v. 
Netherclift,  L.  R.  i  C.  P.  D.  540.  Hodgson  v. 
Scarlett,  i  Barnewell  &  Alderson  241. 

If  this  were  otherwise,  a  man  might  be 
mulcted  in  damages,  merely  for  an  error  of 
opinion  on  a  doubtful  question  of  law.  Greater 
privilege  than  this  could  not  safely  be  claimed 
by  a  judge,  upon  trial  before  the  Senate  upon 
articles  of  impeachment  containing  the  matters 
here  set  forth. 


LIFE  AFL  OAT  AND  A  SHORE.       2  29 

Upon  this  ground,  the  decisions  of  several 
cases  may  be  sustained,  in  which  the  courts 
seemed  to  hold  that  the  privilege  of  parties, 
counsel  and  witnesses  was  absolute.  Astley  v. 
Young,  2  Burrows,  809  ;  and  Kennedy  v.  Hil- 
liard,  10  Irish  Common  Law,  195,  where  this 
"absolutist"  doctrine  is  strikingly  qualified  by 
Mr.  Justice  Fitzgerald. 

3.  Where   an   advocate,  a  party,  or  a  wit 
ness,  utters   defamatory  words,  which  he  knows 
to  be  false,  and  which  he  utters  maliciously,  with 
intent   to  injure    another,   such    words   are   not 
privileged,  although    they   are    uttered    upon  a 
privileged  occasion,  and  although  they  may  re 
late  to  the  matter  in  controversy.     Every  such 
utterance  is  made  in   abuse   of    his   privilege ; 
and  a  wilful  lie  can  never  be  justified  as  perti 
nent  to  any  issue  whatever.     White  v.  Nicholls, 
3  Howard   U.  S.  267.     Marsh  v.  Ellsworth,  i 
Sweeney,  52.     Smith  v.  Howard,  28  Iowa,   51. 
Calkins  v.  Sumner,  13  Wisconsin,  193.* 

4.  Where  an    advocate,    a  party,  or  a  wit 
ness,  confederates  with  others  in  a  scheme  of 
fraud  or  defamation,  and  does  any  thingjin  aid 
of  such  a  scheme,   he   is    liable    in  an  action  of 
conspiracy  for  the  damages  caused  thereby.  See 
Fitzjohn  v.  Mackinder,  9  C.  B.  (N.  S.)  506-534. 

*These  cases  are  referred  to  for  illustration,  not  as 
entirely  supporting  the  text. 


230      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

Among  the  English  cases  relating  to  the 
law  of  Privilege,  in  proceedings  before  military 
and  naval  courts,  as  well  as  before  civil  tribu 
nals,  the  most  valuable  is  that  brought  by  Col 
onel  Dawkins  against  General  Lord  Rokeby,  7 
House  of  Lords  Cases,  755. 

In  1869,  the  Pawnee,  one  of  the  most  valu 
able  vessels  of  Admiral  Dahlgren's  squadron, 
returned  from  a  cruise  in  the  South  Atlantic. 
Shortly  before  her  arrival  at  Portsmouth,  her  pay 
master  was  robbed,  and  a  liberal  reward  offered 
for  the  detection  of  the  thieves.  The  master-at- 
arms,  stimulated  by  this  offer,  proceeded  to  play, 
at  once,  the  part  of  a  detective,  and  of  a  tyrant, 
but  without  £he  knowledge — so  far  as  it  appear 
ed — of  any  of  his  superior  officers.  He  actually 
"  triced  up  "  three  of  the  crew  by  the  wrists,  in 
direct  violation  of  law,  with  the  view  to  induce 
them  to  confess  the  theft. 

It  was,  of  course,  expected  that  Captain 
Clitz,  who  then  commanded  the  Pawnee,  would 
be  brought  to  trial,  not  for  causing  these  punish 
ments  to  be  inflicted,  (for  he  probably  had  no 
personal  knowledge  that  they  had  been  inflicted,) 
but  for  not  using  such  dilligence  as  would  have 
prevented  them.  But  this  was  not  done  ;  neither 
were  any  of  his  officers,  with  one  exception,  held 
amenable  to  discipline  in  not  preventing  these 
illegal  inflictions. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       23 1 

The  executive  officer,  however,  (Mr.  Seely,) 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  was  the  execu 
tive  officer,  was  brought  to  trial,  and  convicted 
of  neglect  of  duty  in  not  preventing  these  ille 
gal  punishments. 

The  men  aggrieved  having  applied  to  me,  I 
advised  that  they  ask  for  an  investigation.  But 
that  investigation  failed  to  fasten  any  knowledge 
of,  or  participation  in,  these  irregularities,  upon 
any  officer,  or  petty  officer,  except  the  master-at- 
arms.  Being  convinced  that  Commander  Seely 
was  wholly  innocent,  and  the  men  who  had  ap 
plied  to  me  for  counsel,  being  also  convinced  of 
his  innocence,  I  assisted  him  professionally  in 
his  defence. 

For  the  neglect  already  mentioned,  and  not 
upon  any  other  finding,  the  Naval  General  Court- 
Martial  suspended  the  accused  from  duty  for 
one  year. 

If  the  accused  was  really  responsible  in  the 
premises,  this  sentence  was  not  unreasonable. 
But  other  cases  of  illegal  punishment  in  other 
vessels  were  then  fresh  in  the  public  mind,  and  it 
was  urged  that  an  example  should  be  made.  The 
Court  was  reconvened,  and  rebuked  for  not  hav 
ing  imposed  a  severer  sentence. 

Under  these  circumstances,  and  under  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Bolles,  who  was  sent  to  as- 


232       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

sist  the  Court  in  revising  its  sentence,  the  ac 
cused  was  sentenced  to  suspension  from  rank 
and  duty  for  four  years.  A  part  of  this  sentence 
was  afterwards  remitted  by  Secretary  Robeson  ; 
but  in  the  meantime,  several  officers  junior  to 
Commander  Seely  passed  over  him  in  the  Navy 
Register. 

As  this  case  has  led  to  the  passage  of  an 
act  of  Congress,  and  also  to  the  promulgation  of 
a  departmental  order,  designed  to  prevent  some 
of  the  points  made  in  my  brief  in  this  case  from 
arising  again,  I  deem  it  of  sufficient  interest  to 
those  who  may  peruse  this  book,  to  append  this 
brief  hereto.  I  will  only  add  that,  in  my  judg 
ment,  Commander  Seely  has  suffered  great  in 
justice  in  this  case  ; — that  he  is  a  very  kind- 
hearted  and  highly  meritorious  officer,  who  would 
scorn  to  inflict  any  cruelty  whatever  upon  men 
under  his  command;  and 'that  either  the  De 
partment  or  Congress  ought  to  grant  his  request. 

Here  is  an  apt  illustration  of  the  injustice 
incident  to  sentences  to  suspension  from  rank 
for  a  particular  time.  Had  Mr.  Seely  stood  fif 
teen  numbers  lower  on  the  Register,  his  rank 
would  not  have  been  affected  by  this  sentence. 
If  an  officer's  rank  is  to  be  affected  at  all,  the 
sentence  should  specify  how  many  numbers  he 
is  to  lose.  Nothing  should  be  left  to  chance. 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE.       233 

IPoints  and  Authorities  in.  support  of  the  re 
quest  of  Commander  Henry  B.  Seely  to  "be 
restored  to  his  original  position  on  the  Navy 
Register. 

1.  It  is  submitted  that  the  proceedings  of  the  Naval 
General  Court-Martial,  upon  whose  sentence  Commander 
Seely  was  suspended  from  his  rank,  were  null  and  void, 
because  that   court   consisted   of    seven   members   only, 
whe»  thirteen  might  have  been  assembled  without  injury 
to  the  service.     Mr.  Solicitor  Bolles  admits  that  where  a 
sentence  is  void,   it  must  be  set   aside,  although  it  may 
have  been  approved  by  the  President ;    and  such  is   un 
questionably  the  law.     Even  where   the  sentence  is   not 
void,  if  it  is  clearly  shown  to  be  contrary  to   the    justice 
of  the  case,  it  should  be  set  aside  by  Congress,  though 
previously  approved  by  the   President.     See  the  cases  of 
Surgeon-General  Hammond  and  Major-General  Fitz-John 
Porter. 

2.  Attorney-General  Wirt,  giving  an  opinion   touch 
ing  a  similar  court,    said,  it  "was  not  a  legal  court  if  thir 
teen  could  have  been  convened  without  manifest  hyury  to 
the  service."    1  Opinions  of   Attorney-General,  299.     On 
page -300   of  the   same  volume,  he   adds,    "It  is  difficult 
to  conc.'ive  an  emergency  in  time  of  peace  so  pressing  as 
to  disable  the  General   Officer   ordering   the   Court  from 
convening  thirteen     commissioned   officers   on  a  trial  of 
life  and  death,  without  manifest  injury  to  the   service. 
And   if   a  smaller  number  act  without  such  emergency, 
I  repeat,  that  they  are  not  a  lawful  court." 

3.  It  is  a  fact  of  public  history,  well   known  to   the 
Department  and  to  the  Court,  that  the  United  States  were 
at  peace  with  all  the  world  in  1869,    and   had  more   com 
missioned  officers  in  the  Navy  than  the   exigencies  of  the 
service  then  required.     At  no  time  in  our  national  his 
tory,  could  thirteen  commissioned  officers  have  been  con- 


234      LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S 

vened  upon  a  General  Court-Martial,  with  less  inconve 
nience  to  themselves  or  less  detriment  to  the  service. 
Several  such  officers,  not  members  of  the  court,  nor 
witnesses  on  either  side,  were  actually  present  as 
spectators  during  the  proceedings  in  open  court. 

4.  With  the  knowledge  that  there  was  then  no  emer 
gency  to  prevent  the  assembling  of  thirteen  officers,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  could  not, — and   therefore   he   did 
not, — certify  to  the  court,  in  his  order  convening  it,  or  in 
any   subsequent  communication  thereto,  that   a  greater 
number  could  not  be  convened  without  injury  to  the 
service. 

5.  "When  a  General  Court-Martial  is  originally  con 
stituted  with  less  than    thirteen  members,  an  omission  to 
add  in  the   order  convening   it,  a  statement  to  the  effect 
that  no  officers  other  than  those  named  can  be  assembled 
without  manifest  injury  to   the  service,  is   latal  to  the 
validity   of  the  proceedings."      Opinions  of    the    Judge 
Advocate  General,  XL.    208.     Winthrop's  Digest,  22,  207. 

G.  In  conformity  with  this  view,  section  142  of  the 
"Orders,  Regulations  and  Instructions  for  the  Adminis 
tration  of  Law  and  Justice  in  the  U.  S.  Navy,"  issued  in 
1870,  (  the  year  succeeding  this  trial,  )  provides  that  such 
a  statement  shall  always  be  added  to  the  order  convening 
a  General  Court-Martial,  and  says,  "it  is  to  be  regarded 
as  an  essential  part  of  such  order  as  showing  that  the  re 
quirements  of  the  statute  relating  to  both  number  and 
rank  have  been  complied  with  as  far  as  the  interests  of 
the  service  would  allow." 

7.  Judge-Advocate  General  Holt  holds,  with  Attor 
ney  General  Wirt,  that  this  is  "an  essential  part  of  the 
order."  In  the  case  of  William  Campbell,  Acting  Second 
Assistant  Engineer,  U.  S.  S.  "Dai  Chiiig,"  S.  A.  B. 
Squadron,  in  1864,  the  sentence  of  a  Naval  General  Court. 
Martial  was  declared  by  Secretary  Welles  to  be  "null 
and  without  any  effect,"  because  athe  court  was  composed 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  A  SHORE.       2  3  5 

of  five  acting-  members  and  one  supernumerary  member." 
Although  the  Admiral  who  convened  the  court  had  cer 
tified  that  a  greater  number  of  officers  could  not  be 
convened  without  injury  to  the  service,  Secretary  Welles 
held  that  the  presence  of  a  supernumerary  member 
showed  that  at  least  one  more  could  have  been  convened, 
and  said,  "a  supernumerary  member  can  be  ordered  only 
when  the  court  is  composed  of  thirteen  acting  members.', 

8.  The  opinions  cited  by  Solicitor  Bolles  merely  re 
peat  what  the  Supreme  Court  decided  in  Martin  v.  Mott, 
12  Wheaton,  16.      The  order  convening  the  Court  in  tha^ 
case  contained  the  statement  that   a  greater  number  of 
officers  could  not  be   convened    without    injury   to    the 
service,  and  also  stated  the  reason  why  no   greater  num 
ber  could  be  so  convened.     It  was  rightly  held  that  the 
decision  of  the  convening  officer  touching  the  sufficiency 
of  that  reason,  was  final.     Of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
But  in  Commander  Seely's  case  the  Secretary  did  not  so 
certify,  and  could  not  so  certify,   in  the    face  of  public 
facts. 

9.  With  respect  to  all  courts  of  special  jurisdiction, 
the  rule  is,  that  every  fact  necessary  to   give  jurisdiction 
must  appear  upon  the  face  of  the  record — and  the  omis 
sion  of  the  statement  above  mentioned  in  the  order  con 
vening  the   court,   renders   all  its    proceedings   void  as 
coram  non  judice ;  the  fact  being  that  a  full  number   of 
officers,  or  a  number  greater  than  seven,  might  have  been 
convened  without  injury  to  the  service.     As   to   "this  rule 
see  Kemp  vs.  Kennedy,  5  Cranch,  172.  State  vs.  Richmond, 
^26  N.  H.,  232;  Damp  vs.  Dane,  29  Wisconsin,   419;  State 
vs.  Berry,  12  Iowa,  58  and  cases  there  cited ;  Kansas  City, 
Missouri  and  Council  Bluffs  R.  R.  Co.    vs.    Campbell  Nel 
son  &  Co.,  26  Mo.  584  and  288.     The  court  in  this  last  case 
says,- — "This  is  a  jurisdictional  fact,  and  without    it  is 
apparent  on  the  record,  the  court  whose  aid  is  sought, 


236       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

whether  possessing  special  or  general   jurisdiction,    is 
powerless  to  take  any  valid  step  in  the  premises." 

See  decisions  of  the  highest  courts  of  different  States 
collected  in  United  States  Digest,  First  Series,  vol.  4, 
title,  Courts,  sec.  352,  p.  G9. 

10.  "Objections  to  the  jurisdiction  may  be  taken   at 
any  time    before    or    even   after   judgment.       Elder  vs. 
D wight  Manuf'g  Co.,   4  Gray,    (Mass.)    204;    Carey  vs. 
Daniels,  5  Metcalf,    (Mass.)   236;    Jordan  vs.    Dennis,  7 
Metcalf,  (Mass.)  590. 

11.  Many   palpable  irregularities    marked  the  pio- 
ceedings  of  this  court,  and  appear  on  many  pages  of   the 
record.     On  page  165,  (  for  example,  )  where  the   "new 
sentence"  is  recorded,  it  does  net  appear   whether  the 
"new  sentence"  was  imposed  in  lieu   of  the   former  sen 
tence  or  in  addition  thereto.      If    it   was  imposed    as    an 
additional  sentence,  it  was   void,   since   the   court   could 
impose  but  one  sentence.     There  being  two  sentences  of 
record,   and  it    not    appearing    affirmatively  that    the 
latter  was  imposed  as  a  substitute  3 or  the  former,   both 
are  void. 

12.  It  is  not  the  Executive  officer,  but  the  Command 
ing  officer  of  a  ship,  who  is  responsible  for  the  discip 
line  of  the  ship.     The  Executive  officer  is  merely  his  aide. 
Section  1469  of  the  Revised  Statutes,  (  Title  xv,  Chapter 
4,)  is  a  declaratory  enactment,  which  merely  formalates 
the  law  as  it  existed  before.     There  being  no  evidence 
that  the  accused  had  any  knowledge  of.  or  participation 
in,  the  illegal  punishment,  he  should  have  been  acquitted. 

13.  It  appears  from  the  order  of  the  Secretary  re 
convening  the  Court,  and  from  the  report  of  Solicitor 
Bolles  on  this  case,  that  both  those  officers  failed  to  dis 
tinguish  between  cruel  punishment  "inflicted"   by   order 
of  the  accused,  (of  which  there  is  no  proof  whatever  in 
the  record,)  and  cruel  punishment  not  prevented  by  him, 


LIFE  AFLOA  T  AND  ASHORE,       237 

and  not  even  known  to  him.  The  case  was  merely  this  : 
cruel  punishment  having  bpcn  inflicted,  the  Executive 
Officer  — not  the  Captain — was  held  guilty  in  not  discov 
ering  and  preventing  it. 

14.  The  failure  of  the  Secretary  thus  to   distinguish 
between  acts  ordered,  and   acts   done  which  by  greater 
vigilance  the   accused   might    have    prevented,   was   the 
cause  of  the  reconvening  of  the   Court. 

15.  It  was  upon  the  reconvening    of   the  Court  that 
the  absence  of  the  full  number  of  Line  Officers  was  most 
prejudicial  to  the  accused.     The  question,   wThat  punish 
ment  should  be  imposed  upon  the  Executive  Officer  of  a 
ship,  (the  Commanding  Officer  not  being  brought  to    trial 
at  all,  though  chargeable  with  the  same  omission  as  the 
accused.)  for  n<>t  using  more  vigilance  to  anticipate,  dis- 
cov  er  and  prevent  a  violation  of  law,  was  pre-eminently 
a  question  for  Sea  Officers,  for  those   who   had  seen  the 
parties  and  had  heard  all  their  evidence,   and  who   were 
experienced  in    such  duties.     The    first    sentence  shows 
what   seven  Line  Officers,  all  of  whom   had  repeatedly 
held  commands,  regarded  as  a  proper  punishment  when 
the  facts  were  fresh  in  their  minds. 

16.  But  when  the  Court  reassembled,  Avhen  the  Secre 
tary's  letter  ignoring  the  important  distinction  above  re 
ferred  to,  was  read  to  them,  and  when  a  civilian  officer,  who 
likewise  ignored  that  necessary  distinction,  was  introduc 
ed  to  "  assi>t  the  Court   in   its   deliberations,"  it  was   no 
difficult  matter  (in  perhaps  a  divided  Court)  to  sway  four 
officers   out    of     seven   by    suggestions   and    influences 
which  would  have  been  ineffectual  to  carry  seven  out  of 
thirteen. 

17.  This  requirement  of  the  law  touching  the  num 
ber  of  members  is  a  most  judicious  one.     Officers   re 
quire  help  from  deliberation  with  their  associates,  and 
especially  when  the  accused  is  sought  to  be  punished  as  if 


238       LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYERS 

he  had  clone  actively  and  wilfully,  what  the  evidence 
shows  he  only  did  not  prevent,  having  no  reason  to  appre 
hend  its  occurrence. 

18.  F  >r  what  purpose  was  Mr.  Bolles  superimposed 
upon  the  Court  but  to  influence  its  action   and   procure  a 
sentence  adequate  to  offences   which  he  regarded  (as  he 
says  in  his  report)  as  "heinous,  monstrous,  horrible,"  but 
which  the  record  shows  to  have  been  merely  a  neglect  to 
exercise    extraordinary  vigilance?     He  was  not,    as   he 
says,  "the  Judge  Advocate    at   the    trial."    There  was  a 
Judge  Advocate,  and   an  Associate  Judge   Advocate,  (an 
officer  unknown  to  the  Law,)  at  the  trial,  and  they  were 
both  present  when  the  Court  reassembled.     By  what  au 
thority  was  Mr.  Bolles  introduced    as   a   Special    Judge 
Advocate?"    There  is  no  authority  for  imposing  such  an 
officer  upon  the  Court. 

19.  Mr.  Bolles1  order  shows  that  he  was  sent  to  the 
Court  to  "  assist  in  its  deliberations."    There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  obeyed  that  order.     What  suggestions  he 
made  the  record  does  not  show.     But  it  would  be    unjust 
to  him  to  assume  that  he  sat   in  Court   in  silence,  when 
his  orders   were  to    -'assist."    But  any  influence  exerted 
in  a  closed  Court  was    irregular.     He  ought  n-.)t  to  have 
been  present  at  all. 

20.  "As  he  has  no  vote,  he  [the  Judge  Advocate]  is 
not  entitled  to  meddle  with  the  sentence."    O'Brien,  283. 
"When  the   Court  is  passing  sentence,  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  the  Judge  Advocate  ought  not    to    interpose    his 
opinion.       On     this     point    all     writers     are     agreed." 
O'Brien,  284. 

21.  Mr.  Bolles  says, "When  the  Court  met  to  consider 
its  sentence,  it  had  no  open  session  at  which  the  accused 
was  or  rightfully   could   be  present :"— thence  he  infers 
that  he  was  properly  added  to  the  Court,    and  sworn  in 
the  absence  of  the  accused.    But  it  is  submitted  that  the 
fact,  that  the  Court  had  "no  open  session   at  which  the 


LIFE  AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE.       239 

accused  could  be  present,"  is  a  sufficient  reason  (were 
there  no  other)  why  no  one  could  be  present  except  the 
members  of  the  Court,  and  the  Judge  Advocate,  who  had 
been  sworn  as  such  at  the  trial  in  presence  of  the 
accused. 

22.  No  new  member  can  be  added  to  a  closed  Court, 
nor  can  its  members  permit  any   one  to  be  present  when 
voting   upon   the  sentence,  (except  themselves   and  the 
Judiie   Advocate,)    without  violating   their  oath   not  to 
disclose  the    sentence  or   the  vote   or   opinion    of    any 
member. 

23.  It  is  submitted,  finally,  that  the  presence  of  Mr. 
Bolles,  with  such  orders,  in  a  closed  Naval  General  Court- 
Martial,  was  unprecedented,  irregular,  improper  and  un 
lawful  ;  that    a    sentence   obtained   under   such   circum 
stances  is  null  and  void,  and  should  be  set  aside,  just  as  a 
verdict  would  be  set  aside  because  of  the   presence  with 
the  jury  of  any  third  person,  even  though    he   were  the 
presiding  Judge  of  the  Court  to  which  that  verdict  must 
be  returned. 


INDEX. 

"  America,"    yacht,    blockade-runner,    captured,    84. 

Appleton's  Cyclopaedia,  29,  67,  70. 

"Atlanta,"  Confederate  Ram,  captured,  77. 

Aranda,  Count  of;  secret  letter  from  him,  198. 

Ayala,  Judge- Advocate  under  Parma,  197. 

Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  219-223. 

Battle  of  Port  Royal,  42-47. 

Battle   of     Port    Eoyal  Ferry,  49. 

Battle  of  Secessionville,  58-65. 

Battle  of  Pocotaligo,  68. 

Battle  of  Coosavvhatchie,  68. 

Battle  between  Confederate  Rams  and  Federal  Gun 
boats,  off  Charleston,  68-75. 

Battle  between  the  Iron-Clads  and  the  Forts  of 
Charleston,  80-83. 

Battle    of  Honey  Hill,  136. 

Battle  of  Deveaux's  Neck,  138. 

Beauregard,  General,  64,  74,  78,  85,  86,  9L,  122,  159, 

"Beauregard,"  privateer,  captured,  32. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  189;  his  Ion  mot,  173;  his 
oration  in  Fort  Sumter,  183-185. 

Belknap,  Captain,  123 ;  his  memorandum,  162. 


242  INDEX. 

Benham,  General,  51,  64  ,74. 

Blockade-running,   110-13,  126. 

Blockading  Squadrons,  15-18. 

Bombardment  of  the  Batteries  on  the  Stono,  135. 

Boynton's  History  of  the  Navy,  32,  45,  70,  74,  81,  82 
110,  150,  172, 173. 

Brief  for  Commander  Seely,  233-239. 

Charles  Fort,  its  ter-centennary,  56. 

Charles   the    Fifth's  Judge-Advocate,  197. 

Charleston,  occupied,  169. 

Charleston  Prizes,  24-33,  84,  170. 

"Columbine,  "  captured,  122. 

Courts-Martial    and  Civil  Courts  compared,  209-216. 

Dahlgren,  Admiral ;  takes  command,  85 ;  his  descent 
on  Morris  Island,  89;  his  offer  to  Taliaferro,  1025 
bombards  Wagner,  92 ;  assaults  Sumter,  108  ;  his 
attachment  to  Sherman,  143 ;  enters  Savannah, 
146  :  enters  Charleston,  167  ;  his  prizes,  170 ;  his 
character,  102,  207. 

Dahlgren's  Council  of  War,  123. 

"Dai  Ching,"  destroyed,  157. 

"David,"  torpedo  boat,  sinks  the  Housatonic,  121. 

''Deer,"  last  of  the  Charleston  blockade-runners,  1 71. 

"Dixie,"  privateer,  29 ;  captured,  84. 

Drayton,  General,  46 ;  Drayton,  Admiral,  44,  80. 

Dupont,  Admiral,  17,  32,  49,  50,  64,  77,  85;  his  victory 
at  Port  Koyal,  42—46;  his  battle  with  the  forts 
at  Charleston,  80—83;  his  prizes,  84. 

Evans,  General,  his  victory,  59. 

Farragut,  Admiral,  17,  18,  77;  his  Ion  mot,  157. 


INDEX.  .     243 

Fleet  Brigade,  138. 

Fort  Johnson,  attacked,  132-134. 

Fort  Moultrie,  attacked,  80-83. 

Fort  Sumter,  attacked,  80-83,  107-110,  151. 

Fort  Wagner,  stormed,  90-102 ;  evacuated,  106. 

Foster,  John  G.,  General,  123,  136,  159,  161. 

"General  Hunter,"  destroyed  by  a  torpedo,  121. 

Georgetown,  captured,  168, 

Gillmore,  General,  85,  92,  102, 108, 127, 128, 129 ;  his 

demand  for  the  surrender  of  Charleston,  103. 
Greeley's  "  American  Conflict,"  25,  27,  32,  45,  50,  53, 

54,  63,  68,  74,  90,  91,  92,  99,  100,  102,  108, 110, 

413,  116,  160,  162,  218. 
Hardee,  General,  evacuates  Savannah,  144;  evacuates 

Charleston,  172. 

Harper's  "  History,"  32,  45,  50,  52,  53,  54,  63,  64,100. 
"Harvest  Moon,"  flag-ship,  sunk  by  a  torpedo,  179. 
Havanna,  194. 

Heroic   Endurance    of  Charleston,  119. 
"Housatonic"  sunk  by  a  torpedo,  121. 
Hunter,  General,  47,  50,  51,  62,  85. 
In  graham,  Admiral,  attempts  to  raise  the  blockade  at 

Charleston,  68 — 77. 

"Ironsides,"  80,  82 ;  attacked  by  the  David,  114. 
"Iroquois"  in  chase  of  the  E.  E.  Lee,  19. 
"'Jefferson  Davis,"  privateer,  lost,  28. 
Jones,  General,  puts  prisoners  under  fire,  131. 
Kearney,  General,  killed  at  Chantilly,  66. 
"Lady  Davis,"  Confederate  steamer,  captured,  170. 
Law  of    Privilege,    227-230. 


244  INDEX. 

Lee,  Kobert  E.,  General,  48,  53. 

Lincoln,  President,  10,  28,  46  ;  his  asassination,  191. 

Lossing's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  33,  44,  49,  50,  53, 

63,  68,  74,  83,  92,  100,  102,  108,  110,  116,  160. 
Macaulay,  Lord,  14,  44,  173,  202.  206. 
"Maple  Leaf,"  destroyed  by  a  Torpedo,  121. 
Mason   and  Slidell's  Mission,  35. 
Morris  Island  Stockade,  131 
Morris   Island,  evacuated,  106. 
Napoleon,  eludes  Nelson,  40,  41,  60,  67,  98,  99,  100, 

124,  139,  149. 
Napoleon  the  Third,  70. 
"Nashville,"  not  a  privateer,  but  a  Confederate  Naval 

Steamer,  33 ;  destroyed  by  the  Montauk,  34. 
Nelson,  Lord,  in  chase  of  Napoleon,  40-43. 
New  York  Times,  78,  193. 

«     Herald,  137,  142,  193. 
"         "     Tribune,  193. 

«    World,  193. 
Paris,  Count  of;  his  History  of  the  Civil  War,  14,  35, 

45,  50,  53,  54,  63,  68,  100;  on  the  Navy,  16. 
Palmetto  State  Politics,  217. 

"Patapsco,"  80,  92,  105 ;  sunk   by    a   torpedo,  157. 
Pemberton,  General,  53,  64,  65. 
"Petrel,"  privateer,  captured,  30. 
Pollard's  History  of  the  Lost  Cause,  46,  64, 86, 92, 173. 
Porter,  Admiral,  13,  17,  77,  179. 
Preston,   Flag-Lieutenant,    with   Lieutenant   Porter, 

captured  at  Sumter,  113 ;  killed  at  Fisher,  156. 
Putnam's  Rebellion  Record,  68,  75,  78,  181,  32,  50, 

51,  64,  68,  101, 141. 


INDEX.  245 

Ribault's  Settlement  at  Port  Royal,  55-58. 
Ripley,  General  R.  S.,  78,  79,  83,  91. 
Romance  and  Reality  of  War,  87,  100. 
"Savannah,"  privateer,  captured,  25. 
Schinimelfennig,  General;  his  battle,  170;  his  letter, 

180 ;  his  death,  182. 
Sea  Islands,  captured  and  occupied,  48. 
Sherman,  Thomas  W.,  General ;  his  army,  47-49. 
Sherman,  William    Tecumseh,  General,  joins  Dahl- 

gren,  142-145 ;  at  Savannah,  146-150 ;  his  march 

through  the  Carolinas,  158-160. 
Small,  Robert,  runs  away  with  the  Planter,  53-55. 
Steam   Navies,  11,  43. 
Stephens,  Commodore,  106. 
Stevens,  General,  49,  59,  61-67 ;  his  death,  66. 
Strong,  General,  George  C.  85  ;  killed  at  Wagner,  94. 
Sumter,   Federal  Flag  restored  over,  182. 
Tatnall,  Commodore,  145. 
Torpedo  defences  of  Charleston,  128. 
Trip  to  the  Tropics,  192-202. 
Tucker,  Commodore,  72,  80,  151,  172. 
Unwritten  Chapter  in  Colonial  Life,  219. 
"Water  Witch,"  captured,  122. 
"Weehawken,"  sunk  off  Charleston,  116. 
Welles,  Secretary,  14,  45,  46,  82,  110,  141,  143. 
Wellington,  Duke,  44,  122. 
Wilson,  Senator,  at  the  grave  of  Hayne,  190. 


CHARLESTON  WAR  NEWSPAPERS  FOR  SALE. 


FILES  of  the  Charleston  COURIER,  and  also  of  the 
Charleston  MERCURY,  during  the  Civil  War, — 
nearly  perfect, — were  placed  by  their  owners  in  the 
Author's  hands  for  reference  in  preparing  these  leaves 
for  the  press,  and  are  now  for  sale.  The  best  brains  of 
the  South,  enriched  these  journals ;  the  best  hearts  of 
the  South  throbbed  in  them.  Such  files  are  very  rare. 
For  historical  societies  and  authors  they  are  of  inesti 
mable  value.  Address 

CHARLES  COWLEY, 
12,  MIDDLE  STREET,  LOWELL,  MASS. 


WORKS  OF  THE  AUTHOR. 


Upon  receipt  of  the  price  set  against  either 
of  the  works  named  below,  by  the  PENHALLOW 
PRINTING  COMPANY,  by  mail  or  otherwise,  at 
12  Middle  Street,  Lowell,  Mass.,  a  copy  will 
be  forwarded  by  mail,  free  of  postage,  to  any 
address  in  the  United  States. 

LEAVES  FROM  A  LAWYER'S  LIFE  AFLOAT 
AND  ASHORE.  Cloth  binding,  $1.25  ;  paper 
binding,  $1.00.  1879. 

REMINISCENCES  OF  JAMES  C.  AYER,  AND 
THE  TOWN  OF  AYER.  In  paper,  $1.00.  1879. 

HISTORY  OF  LOWELL.  In  cloth,  $1.25. 
1868.  Not  many  copies  remain  unsold. 

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Manual.  Price  of  the  "Manual,"  in  cloth,  $1.00, 
in  paper,  fifty  cents.  1878. 

COWLEY'S  DAHLGREN'S  MARITIME  INTER 
NATIONAL  LAW.  1877.  Very  scarce. 


OUR  DIVORCE  COURTS  :  Their  Origin  and 
History:  Why  They  are  Needed:  How  They 
are  Abused:  And  How  They  may  be  Reformed. 
Paper  covers.  Twenty-five  cents.  1879. 

FAMOUS  DIVORCES  OF  ALL  AGES.  Cloth 
binding,  $1.25  ;  paper  binding,  $1.00.  1878. 

It  is  said  in  the  preface  to  Peter  Burke's  "Cele 
brated  Trials  connected  with  the  Aristocracy,"  that  a 
knowledge  of  them  "forms,  in  some  measure,  a 
necessary  adjunct  to  the  history  of  the  country." 
And  the  same  is  true  of  Judge  Cowley's  singular 
series  of  narratives,  of  which  it  may  be  truly  said, 
in  the  words  of  another  and  far  greater  Burke,  that 
they  "exhibit  man  as  he  is  in  action  and  principle, 
and  not  as  he  is  usually  drawn  by  poets  and  specu- 
ative  philosophers." 

BROWNE'S  DIVORCE  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES. 
Paper  covers.  Twenty-five  cents.  1877. 

"Xo  case  has  ever  occured,  which  illustrates 
so  strikingly  some  of  the  abuses  and  defects  of  our 
present  Divorce- Code,  as  that  which  Judge  Cowley 
has  so  graphically  recorded  in  this  book." 

INDIAN  AND  PIONEER  MEMORIES  OF  THE 
REGION  OF  LOWELL.  Paper  covers.  Fifty  cents. 
1862.  But  few  copies  unsold. 

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